Jim Murphy: Scotland and the UK are ahead of most of Europe on broadband availability. However, we recognise that some people do still have problems accessing broadband, and that is being addressed through the "Digital Britain" White Paper.

Jim Murphy: The right hon. Gentleman, again, makes a really important point, and the issue of access to broadband for business and domestic users is crucial. The figures that I have show, however, that despite that worrying report in the newspaper, Aberdeen is ahead of most Scottish cities. The fact is that less than half of people in Dundee and Edinburgh have access to super-fast broadband, and less than one third have access in Glasgow. Aberdeen is in a much stronger position, but we are determined to ensure that there is universal access in Aberdeen and beyond.

Jim Murphy: I recently had the opportunity to visit the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, and the people there raised those issues with me. It is important that there be an upgrade for existing copper and wire networks, but the Government are also committed to a 50 per cent. levy on those with BT lines- [ Interruption. ] I mean a 50p levy.  [ Interruption. ] That is the tax at some point in the future. There will be a 50p levy on those throughout the United Kingdom with a BT fixed line, and rural areas and island communities will benefit from that.

Ann McKechin: The hon. Lady raises a genuine issue of concern, a concern which I share. There is already close co-operation between those organising the Commonwealth games to be held in Glasgow and the Olympic games to be held in London, and I am sure that the lessons learned about how we tackle this problem will be followed by colleagues in Scotland.

Andrew Robathan: What recent discussions he has had with Ministerial colleagues on the level of employment in Scotland.

Jim Murphy: My hon. Friend raises some big issues. Of course it is essential that we do all we can to support people through this recession, and our tax system remains internationally competitive. While we can learn individual lessons from other countries, I do not think the UK or Scotland would be well suited to following exactly the economic model of Ireland-or Iceland.

Jim Murphy: My right hon. Friend is right to remind the House that amidst all the understandable talk about an impending recovery, the recession is just starting for many people who have perhaps lost their jobs over recent weeks, or for small businesses that continue to struggle. That is why we are determined to do more. I know she is a doughty fighter for the city of Stirling, and there is a huge amount to be optimistic about there, as there is across the whole of Scotland. While of course Scotland faces real difficulties at the moment, I remain entirely optimistic that we will get through this recession strongly.

Jim Murphy: We introduced the Welfare Reform Act 2007, which ensures that we provide new support to those on incapacity benefit, particularly those who experience fluctuating mental health conditions, and especially women in their 30s and 40s, in respect of whom there is an additional trend that is worrying for us all.
	However, it is nauseating to listen to the hon. Gentleman lecture us on incapacity benefit. We are doing everything we can to support those people in getting off that benefit. The fact is that when his Government were in power, they deliberately manufactured the unemployment figures by deliberately taking people off unemployment and sticking them on to a life of benefit dependency on incapacity benefit, for which they will never be forgiven.

Michael Weir: The Minister will be aware that many groups, including the Association of Scotland's Self-Caterers and the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland, have raised concern about the impact of the proposed abolition of furnished holiday letting relief. Alternative solutions have been proposed that would be tax neutral and support the industry. Will she urge the Treasury to look again at this matter to avoid serious damage to the economy in many areas of rural Scotland, including mine?

Louise Ellman: How important is the work of the North-West regional development agency in delivering investment to business, science to Daresbury, and the successful "capital of culture" year to Liverpool as part of the city's ongoing regeneration?

Gordon Brown: My hon. Friend brings a great deal of experience to the issue, and he is absolutely right. Any decisions about proscription should be made not on the basis of a few exchanges in the House of Commons but on the basis of a detailed assessment of what is right and what is wrong, and part of that involves taking police evidence into account. As my hon. Friend says, we must not get into a position in which the decisions that we make act as a recruiting sergeant for militants in this country. We are taking every action that we can to deal with the terrorist threat in this country, and I think that, on an all-party basis, we should be united in saying that we doing what we can to ensure that the al-Qaeda threat- [Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor is saying something about money. We have doubled the amount of money being spent on security. That would not happen under a Conservative Government, because they would not be prepared to make the funds available. Why, when we are dealing with the issue of spending, do they persist in their policy on inheritance tax- [Interruption]-whose beneficiaries resemble the Leader of the Opposition's Christmas card list?

Gordon Brown: I want to praise my hon. Friend for the work he has done in promoting a climate change agreement, and the work of Members of all parties who want to see success at Copenhagen. I will go to the Commonwealth conference this week to try to build a consensus between richer countries such as Australia and ourselves and some of the poorest countries in the world on how we can finance climate change for developing countries as well as developed countries. If we are to get an agreement to cut emissions in some of the poorest countries in the world, it is absolutely essential that we get an agreement on finance. I hope all parties here will support the British proposal for $100 billion of funding for climate change in 2020 as a result of the contributions of the European Union, America and some of the other richest countries in the world. We will do everything in our power to secure a climate change agreement in Copenhagen.

Gordon Brown: The Act of Settlement is outdated, and I think that most people recognise the need for change. Change can be brought about only by not just the United Kingdom, but all realms where Her Majesty is Queen making a decision to change. That is why it is important to discuss this with all members of the Commonwealth, including countries such as Australia and Canada. That is the process that will be undertaken in due course.

George Osborne: Let me start by making it absolutely clear that we support the actions taken by the Bank of England to maintain financial stability. I completely agree with the Chancellor that, as a general principle, the central bank must be able to carry out its lender of last resort function with the discretion that it deems necessary to preserve the financial system. Its ability to do so will remain under the reform structure of financial regulation that we intend to implement.
	As the deputy governor, Paul Tucker, said yesterday in his evidence to the Select Committee, these loans were a classic lender of last resort operation. So, we support the principle of covert lending operations by the Bank, but of course we also have a responsibility to ask questions on behalf of the taxpayer once the details of such operations are quite rightly made public. I shall therefore first ask the Chancellor specifically about his role. He said that he authorised the indemnity, but will he confirm whether his authorisation was sought for the loans made by the Bank of England, and indeed its operation?
	The Chancellor made this statement because the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and I put in to ask an urgent question. Surely the Chancellor himself should be the person who initially informs Parliament of operations on this scale, particularly when there are very large taxpayer indemnities that he signs off. It has, of course, taken more than a year for the existence of these loans to be disclosed. What discussions did the Chancellor have with the Governor over the last 12 months about whether the disclosure could have been made earlier? In particular, once the Government had declared their intention to insure the assets of both banks in January this year, what did the right hon. Gentleman consider to be the remaining risks that would have resulted from the disclosure of the loans at that time?
	My second question is partly to do with the issue of timing. Is the Chancellor personally satisfied that the Lloyds shareholders were given the maximum possible amount of information about the financial health of HBOS in advance of the merger of the two banks? Was the loan to HBOS fully repaid by the time of the merger in mid-January? What legal advice did he receive about the level of disclosure required, and is he expecting any legal challenges from shareholders?
	Thirdly, as the Chancellor implied in his statement, the Banking Act 2009 removed the requirement for the Bank of England to publish a weekly balance sheet. Was the existence of the loans a motivating factor behind that change, which was of course proposed at the time that the loans were in existence? Is it desirable that the Bank essentially has no requirement to publish regular information about its balance sheet? Does he agree that that at least needs to be kept under review?
	The sheer scale of the loans-they are more than the entire schools budget-raises the question of how the two banks were allowed to pursue funding models that left them so close to collapse in the first place. Does not that illustrate yet again the total failure of the tripartite system of regulation created by this Government? Does it not underline the need for fundamental reform to put the Bank of England back in charge of banking supervision? That argument is now explicitly supported by Jacques de Larosière, the architect of the European changes, and it is driving reforms in Germany, Belgium and America. Indeed, President Obama's economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said this month that separating bank supervision from central banking can cause one to
	"get into a 'left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing' kind of problem in a crisis".
	When asked to cite an example, he singled out the UK, saying that the divided regulatory system had caused "a lot of problems", yet the Government's proposed Financial Services Bill, which we will debate in a couple of days' time, does absolutely nothing to address that flaw at the heart of the regulatory system. We all know why-it was designed by the Prime Minister of this country.
	Finally, I should like to ask the Chancellor about something else that the Governor of the Bank of England said to the Treasury Committee yesterday in his comments on Britain's credit rating. When asked whether Britain was at risk of a downgrade, the Governor of our central bank said:
	"The longer there isn't a credible plan that sets out what action will be taken on the debt, the more"
	there is a risk to that credit rating. Does the Chancellor agree that the only possible interpretation of those remarks is that the Governor does not think that there is currently a "credible plan" to deal with our budget deficit? Why is the Chancellor taking these risks with Britain's credit rating?

Alistair Darling: The hon. Gentleman raises a number of matters, some of which are very important. I should like to deal with them, but I shall begin with a general point. He remarked on the state of RBS and HBOS, and no one could disagree that what the banks did was to get themselves into a situation where eventually they collapsed. However, his points about our regulatory system simply do not hold water, as banks right across the world got into trouble. Lehman Brothers was regulated by the American authorities, as were the other American banks that went down. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Germany, which has also seen banks go down. There was a problem with regulatory systems right across the world, and to suggest that the problem was somehow specific to us simply does not hold water.
	I want to make another point about the American regulators. The problem for the Americans is that they have seven or eight different regulators. The Obama Administration are trying to get around it by establishing some sort of council to bring them together. We have only three organisations responsible-the Bank of England, the FSA and the Treasury, which will always be involved where public money is.
	If the hon. Gentleman thinks for one moment that merging the work of the FSA and the Bank of England, under which the Bank would be responsible for interest rate policy, macro-prudential supervision and the individual supervision of everything from large banks such as HSBC to an independent financial adviser in Ullapool-doing all that at the same time-he is asking for trouble. The disruption would be tremendous. He should think long and hard-my guess is that he is-about whether he would ever see that policy through in the way that he originally announced it.
	The hon. Gentleman asked some important questions, which I would like to deal with and on which I will do him a little more justice. First, he asked an important question about disclosure. The House will remember that during the period of Northern Rock, there was pretty much unanimous agreement that the Bank's inability to act in a confidential way was in itself destabilising. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman wrote to urge me to do something to make it less obvious that the Bank was engaged in such operations, and I agreed with him. The Banking Act 2009 means that that the Bank has the discretion as to when it discloses what is going on.
	That discretion lies with the Governor of the Bank of England. It ends the obligation to do a weekly return in which, if one looked at it closely, one could see what had been going on. At a time like last year, if people had realised the extent of what was necessary on a day-to-day basis simply to keep banks open and their cash machines operating-if that had been disclosed at the time, with all that turbulence-far from reassuring people, it would have made a difficult situation much, much worse. I think that the hon. Gentleman agrees with that proposition. That was why we changed the law in the Banking Act-to try and make sure that there was not the exposure that we had in relation to Northern Rock.
	It is for the Governor to decide when the information is disclosed. His judgment was that now we have RBS in the asset protection scheme-that agreement was finally signed just this week-and Lloyds is pursuing its alternative action, and with that water between us and the turbulence of last year, it was safe to disclose this information. As I said in my statement, the judgment will always be a fine one, but that was his judgment and I agree with it.
	The hon. Gentleman asked the important question, in relation to Lloyds, of what was said. The legal responsibility to shareholders lies with the board of directors of a particular institution. In November 2008, when Lloyds published its pre-merger statement, it said:
	"The HBOS Group expects that it will substantially rely for the foreseeable future on the continued availability of these government sponsored arrangements, including central bank liquidity facilities (such as those offered by the Bank of England)".
	It put that statement in. It is for the directors of that bank, properly advised, to decide what they disclose, but I can tell the House that the directors of Lloyds were told by the Bank of England of the nature and extent of the operations, so they knew them at the time. The facilities were repaid at the beginning of January, as I said in my statement. I believe that the final vote taken by the HBOS shareholders took place at the end of January 2009.
	For the sake of completeness, the current Lloyds prospectus in relation to its raising money on the markets at present discloses that it is receiving money, and the amount that it is receiving through the credit guarantee scheme, so it is telling prospective investors what the position is. That is the position in relation to Lloyds.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about the indemnity. Of course, because of the size of what was going on in 2008, I had to indemnify the Bank of England. It has a limited balance sheet, but I felt it was my clear duty. Maybe not at the time, but looking back now, people will think we had to take this action, otherwise we would have been faced with a much more difficult situation.
	In relation to the final point that the hon. Gentleman raised, both of us will be at the Dispatch Box tomorrow afternoon, and I intend to return to the wider economy at that stage.

Vincent Cable: We all accept that the intervention had to happen and that it was right in principle to have confidentiality. That confidentiality has to be balanced against accountability to Parliament for the expenditure of very large sums of money. The question is why it was only yesterday that it was judged sufficiently safe for the public and Parliament to be given the information. Why, for example, were we not told about it on 7 March, when those banks entered into the asset protection scheme, or in the Budget a few weeks later? If there was still some major doubt about the stability of the banks, why was that not revealed a month ago when the Chancellor made a statement on the completion of the asset protection scheme? Why was Parliament not told then? Why has he waited so long to give us this information? One has to note, as the shadow Chancellor did, that yesterday's announcement occurred not in Parliament but in the middle of a statement from the Governor. That statement was a devastating indictment of the Government's policy of not splitting up the banks, and this announcement was hidden in the middle of it.
	My second question is about the Chancellor's clear statement that there was no cost to the taxpayer. Is that true? My understanding of the lender of last resort facility is that it carries a commercial rate of interest, but my understanding of these loans is that there was no interest involved. Will he clarify the position on this? If there was a concessional element to the lending, that would mean that a very large public subsidy was involved, even though the loans were repaid. A very large risk was taken with taxpayers' money, and there was an enormous potential cost. We need to be absolutely clear that that cost was paid for by the banks. Will the Chancellor clarify what the interest rates actually were?
	My third question is on the link with Lloyds. The Chancellor has just brought the historical record up to date by reading out what was said by the directors at the time. Indeed, he is quite right to say that there was a general warning that continuing liquidity was required for HBOS, but was it not clear on 1 October, when HBOS became the first bank to require major liquidity help-indeed, half the major package was for HBOS-that this was a can of worms, and that the situation was far worse than had initially been believed? That has been made clear in his statement today. Would not the correct course of action at that time have been to take HBOS into full public ownership in the way that Bradford & Bingley was? Instead, the Lloyds shareholders continued to be encouraged in their belief that this takeover should take place.
	My final question is this: are there any other loans that we do not know about? Can the Chancellor give us a categorical assurance that no other financial institutions have outstanding records of loans that have taken place in this emergency that he has not yet told the House of Commons about?

Alistair Darling: I am sure that, when the hon. Gentleman has time to reflect on what he has said, he will agree that his last question was really ridiculous. No Chancellor of the Exchequer or Governor of the Bank of England is going to provide a running commentary on what they may or may not be doing, for perfectly obvious reasons that I would have thought even the hon. Gentleman would recognise. In fact, he did recognise them when Northern Rock was at the height of its difficulties. I just think that his question was plain daft, really.
	I can tell the House that, to a large extent, because of the action that we and the Bank of England have taken, the banking system is now far more stable than it was. We have got through many of the difficulties that we faced, and we are working our way through others. Only by taking that decisive action were we able to do that. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has the luxury of being a commentator, as opposed to someone who actually has to do these things, but speaking from the other side of the fence, I can tell him that, because of the action we have taken, the banking system is now far more stable, not just here but in other countries as well.
	The hon. Gentleman went back to the question of Lloyds. I will not read out what I have already said, but the directors of Lloyds clearly have an obligation to their shareholders, and they clearly had an obligation in anticipation of their takeover of HBOS. It was for them-properly advised, as I said-to disclose what they needed to in the prospectus. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there then followed a vote by the Lloyds shareholders and a vote by the HBOS shareholders. Both those votes were overwhelming. It is for the members of the Lloyds board itself to decide what to disclose to their shareholders, and there are all sorts of legal considerations that they have to take into account. It is for them to be satisfied that that was the case.
	I really do not accept the hon. Gentleman's argument about splitting the banks. We discuss this at just about every statement and Question Time, and I refer him to what I have said on previous occasions. He should bear in mind that Northern Rock was a narrow bank-a classic retail bank-and it got into deep trouble. At the other end of the scale of exotic activities, there was Lehman's, which did not take a single deposit. It, too, got into terrible trouble. The US authorities at the time did precisely what some people suggested and let it go down. We do not have to speculate about what happened: it brought the entire system down at the same time. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that matter.

Alistair Darling: I suspect that we will have ample opportunity to return to that tomorrow afternoon on the last day of the debates on the Queen's Speech. Let me just make a general point. Yes, over the past 18 months or so we have had to put a substantial amount of money into the banking system. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman, and the House, that the exceptional liquidity assistance was repaid. As for the other schemes, fees are charged for the credit guarantee scheme, and the money has to be repaid under the special liquidity scheme. Ultimately, of course, we will get the money that we have put into RBS and Lloyds back when we come to sell those banks at whatever time is appropriate.

Alistair Darling: I updated the House in my statement at the beginning of November. In view of what Mr. Speaker said, I am not going to repeat that, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at it. In it, I set out what the arrangements were and what the banks were paying. I agree with him, and with other hon. Members who have raised this, that there is still a particular problem in relation to small businesses getting funding; that is something that we are pursuing.
	On the particular cases, I strongly advise him, as I advised my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke), that it is well worth taking the matter up with the bank concerned; sometimes matters can be resolved, sometimes not. There is a general problem in this regard. In the case of HBOS customers, for example, there is no doubt that that bank's pricing policy caused it massive problems in terms of not reflecting the true cost of making the loans. Obviously, I do not know what business or bank the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but I strongly advise him to pursue the matter with the bank concerned if he has not already done so.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is in the midst of his rhetorical flow, but I appeal to him to remember that when he is referring to a right hon. Member of the House, he must do so with respect to the constituency rather than by identifying a Member by name.

Anne McGuire: Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that both the constitutional convention that established the Scottish Parliament-at least, it built the momentum for its establishment-and the Calman commission brought consensus within Scottish politics. The results of the convention and the commission are due to the dedication, commitment and hard work of the people who participated. The one constant that was absent from both processes was the Scottish National party which, when it comes to the crunch, is more interested in what is important for the SNP than in standing up for Scotland.

Angus MacNeil: Recently, a Government Minister, Lord Bach, praised the Isle of Man as being beneficial to the UK's economy. The Isle of Man has about the population of Paisley, but has far more independence and autonomy. Why can Scotland not have the powers and autonomy of the Isle of Man?

Chris Grayling: I am sorry, but I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I agree that we should have independent figures. The figures have been changed a number of times over the years by the Government, as we know from 18 months ago under the previous Secretary of State when there were issues about the Government's use of figures. Of course we should have independent statistics, but we can deal only with the tools that we have available. They show, for example, that racially and religiously aggravated harassment has also increased-more than doubled-over the past decade.
	The fourth pledge given before the Government took office was to give the victims of crime the right to be consulted before charges were dropped or changed. What a hollow promise that turned out to be, particularly given the Home Secretary's comments just last week that "in an ideal world" every victim would be "visited by the police", though it was admitted at the time that doing so would be "rather challenging". If we talk to the victims of crime, a very different picture emerges-one in which they receive very little information about what is going and are not sure even when trials are happening. The Home Secretary has talked to victims of crime, so he knows that the promises made to the victims of crime back in the 1990s have not been fulfilled a decade later.
	One of the most distressing cases of failed communications I have come across involved the owner of a post office in Worcestershire, who was brutally beaten by a gang of armed raiders and has still not made a full recovery. The assailants were caught and jailed. Their sentences were reduced substantially on appeal, but the victims of that crime were not even told that the appeal was happening. I know from having talked to the victims in that case that their sense of fear and misery about what happened to them was made much worse as a result.

Frank Field: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is a matter not just of people coming here to work, but of people come here to work who then become citizens? That is what is growing our population.

Alan Johnson: I welcome the opportunity to debate the proposals in Her Majesty's Gracious Speech. I apologise in advance for not being able to be present for the winding-up speeches.
	The Crime and Security Bill includes measures to tackle youth crime and antisocial behaviour. It will give greater protection to victims of crime, particularly women and girls. It will prevent wheel-clamping businesses from imposing exorbitant fines, it will cut down police bureaucracy, and it will establish a new legal framework for the retention of DNA records.
	Although the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) did not actually say the words, he returned again to the "broken Britain" theme that has been his mantra for some time. However, he now seems to have married that-"married" being the operative word, or so it will seem to those who have read  The Sunday  Times-to one of the Conservative Party's greatest hits: "back to basics". He wants to convince more couples that they should marry; that, he believes, is essential to solving the social problems to which he has referred. But how would he do that? How is a 21st population to be tempted, cajoled or enticed into abandoning their wicked cohabitation in order to get spliced? It is suggested that all official forms must state whether a couple are married or not. That is brilliant, and probably infallible. It will go with the other measures that the hon. Gentleman has announced, such as cutting police numbers this year, abandoning police authorities, and undermining the operational authority of chief constables. That, in the words of the Conservative amendment, is what he believes will
	"offer answers to the growing social challenges facing the United Kingdom".

Chris Grayling: One development seen in North American cities in recent times is the involvement of children as young as ten and 11 in running drugs. That is now becoming a feature of some estates in the UK. Why does the Home Secretary think that that is happening? What are the causes, and what does he think we can do about it?

Alan Johnson: It probably is possible to be more precise, but that is the information that I was given yesterday. There is a paucity of good research on this and perhaps we need to do substantially more to ensure that we have more accurate figures. I know that the hon. Gentleman is interested in these issues, so I shall look to see whether there are any further figures on the breakdown and furnish him with that information.
	I was talking about the groundbreaking powers in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which, for the first time, provided the police, local authorities and other agencies with civil powers to deal with behaviour that, although it was not yet criminal, was a major source of insecurity and unhappiness. Along with the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, that has provided police and local authorities with the powers that they need to tackle antisocial behaviour effectively, including acceptable behaviour contracts, antisocial behaviour orders and powers to close crack houses and evict irresponsible tenants.
	The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell has demonstrated yet again his profound misunderstanding of the powers that are now available to tackle such problems. In a newspaper interview last week, he said that there should be informal solutions that the police could use-there are. He said that ASBOs should be more of a last resort if nothing else is working-that is precisely what they are. He said that the police should be allowed to impose grounding orders and instant community penalties-they can. Indeed, some groundbreaking work is being done in the west midlands in that respect, although all police authorities have that power.
	I disagree with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion-he did not mention this point in his speech, but it was yet again included in his  Daily Mail interview-that the police should be able to confiscate mobile phones and iPods from 13-year-olds. He said that that would be a simple, non-criminalising intervention. So, a police officer could simply take a child's property-presumably with no authority, no consultation and no reference to the parents, otherwise it will hardly be simple and quick, and with very little, if any, documentation-as an arbitrary punishment for a minor offence. That is the kind of simple, non-criminalising police intervention that is unlikely to bolster confidence in the police among the young. I suggest that it would also be unlikely to please parents, although I suppose that they could always fill in a form of complaint provided that there something on there to say whether they were married or not.
	Parenting orders have been of immense importance when parents of children who are persistent offenders are either incapable of stopping their child's bad behaviour or remain stubbornly ignorant of it. The Bill will further address that by ensuring that courts consider a child's parenting need before they place an ASBO on 10 to 15-year-olds. At that point, a voluntary parenting contract or a parenting order could be imposed. If that ASBO was subsequently breached, a parenting order would automatically be triggered, rather than being discretionary.

Alan Johnson: I will, and this is my only opportunity to do so. People are very welcome to come to this country to study or work and to contribute to our culture and economy, but it is crucial to break the link that means that they can become British citizens if they stay here long enough. That has to end, and a points-based citizenship system, along the lines of the points-based immigration system, can ensure that being a citizen of this country means more than simply being here for a certain amount of time. That is a very important change, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and those other colleagues who have been pushing it for some time.
	The Bill proposes a new framework for the retention of DNA records. There can be no question, I hope, that the development of DNA fingerprinting by the British scientist Sir Alec Jeffreys has revolutionised the fight against crime. The retention of DNA records by the police has been critical in solving many high-profile and horrific crimes. It is unlikely that Mark Dixie, the murderer of Sally Anne Bowman, would ever have been found, had his DNA profile not been recorded following his arrest for involvement in a pub brawl from which he was released without charge. Take also the case of Abdul Azad. He was arrested for violent disorder at his Birmingham home in February 2005. He had a DNA sample taken and was released without charge. In July 2005, just five months later, a stranger rape occurred in Stafford, 25 miles away. There were no clues until the skin beneath the victim's fingernails was profiled and found to match Abdul Azad's DNA.
	This is an argument about statistics, civil liberties and good policing, but fundamentally it is an argument about people and their requirement for justice and the enormous deterrent effect of DNA profiling, as well it being such a valuable tool in solving crime. It is unlikely that Sean Hodgson, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering and raping Teresa de Simone in 1982, would have been cleared, had not DNA analysis completed in 2008 shown that he was not the killer, or that Michael Shirley, who spent 16 years in prison for the rape and murder of Linda Cook, would have been released in 2003. This about protecting the innocent, as well as finding the guilty.
	Almost exactly a year ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that although holding the DNA records of those who were not convicted was justifiable under the European convention on human rights, it was unlawful to hold these records indefinitely. There followed an extensive period of consultation and deliberation. In determining what is proportionate, as the Bill seeks to do, we must be guided by the most recent scientific evidence, the professional opinion of the police, and the reasonable expectations of the public that they should be protected against crime, and that there should be justice for them and their families if that protection fails.
	These elements must be balanced against the understandable concerns of those who have never been convicted of any crime about the retention of their DNA profile. Although not required to by the European Court judgment, we took the decision that all DNA samples should be destroyed after six months, once they have been converted- [Interruption.] Six months. I wish Members on the Opposition Front Bench would listen more closely. The DNA sample-the swab-must be destroyed within six months. That was not a mandate from the European Court, but is something that we decided to do.
	That six months gives the chance to convert the sample into the 20 numbers that form the DNA profile.  [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) asks from a sedentary position, "So what?" Many people are concerned that some of their human tissue will be retained. All the arguments that we know in the House from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill raise very real concerns. It is important to stress that it is not the tissue, but the tissue converted into the 20 numbers that forms the DNA profile-and I say that once again, for the information of the Opposition Front-Bench team.
	The evidence that we have, reinforced by the responses to the public consultation, shows that there is a strong case for the retention of the DNA profiles of those who are arrested but not convicted, and that there is a link between arrest for a previous offence and future offending. It also shows that after six years, the probability of re-arrest for this group is no higher than for the rest of the population.  [Interruption.] Hon. Members ask what about Scotland. Scotland did not have the same information to hand when its decision to go for three years was taken, with the option of a further two years. I do not know what led to that decision. What I know is that a retention period of three years would leave a larger percentage of people with a higher hazard rate who would commit crime in the future than would a retention period of six years.
	The difference between us is not about people being innocent until proven guilty. I heard the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell saying that on the "Today" programme. Two Opposition parties propose keeping on the database people who are innocent until proven guilty. They propose that as well. The difference is that they say it should just be for serious crimes that they have been arrested but not charged for, as in Scotland, and not for any other crimes. The research shows that there is no difference in the probability of reoffending, whether a serious or non-serious crime was previously committed. The evidence that we have, reinforced by the responses to the public consultation, suggest that six years is the right period.
	Under the framework proposed by the Bill, the DNA profiles of all those convicted of crimes will be held indefinitely. That is not controversial. The Bill also gives the police the powers to take DNA samples from people who were convicted of a serious violent and sexual offence in the past, before DNA was routinely taken, and previous offenders who are returning from overseas. We believe that this will bring justice for victims and their families by solving more cold cases. Once again, I do not believe that that is controversial. It is supported on all sides of the House.
	However, the records of adults arrested but not convicted will be retained for six years, not 12 years as originally proposed, regardless of the seriousness of the crimes for which they were arrested. The records of under-18s convicted of serious crimes will be held indefinitely, but for those convicted of minor offences, if it is a first conviction, the record will be kept for five years. Only if it is a second conviction will that record be held indefinitely. It would be disproportionate if a young person who commits a minor offence, which they deeply regret, were to have that crime held against them for the rest of their lives.
	For under-18s who are arrested but not convicted, for both serious crimes and minor offences, their records will be retained for three years. For 16 and 17-year-olds entering the peak offending years, their records will be retained for six years.
	There is one exception to the six-year rule for adults who are arrested but not convicted. The House will be aware that national security investigations, including counter-terrorism cases, can go on for many years. In some cases investigations have lasted for as long as 25 years. Setting a six-year time frame in such cases would be potentially damaging for national security. The Bill will therefore allow the retention of DNA profiles beyond the six-year point in these exceptional cases. Fewer than 1,000 such records exist, and under the Bill's proposals, each case would be reviewed every two years.
	Although under current legislation those who seek to have their DNA profile removed from the database may apply to the chief constable to have their personal data removed, chief constables are under no obligation to fulfil such a request. The measures proposed by the Crime and Security Bill will place a legal duty on the chief constable to remove the DNA records in circumstances where the arrest was unlawful, the taking of the biometric data was unlawful, the arrest was based on mistaken identity or if there were other circumstances relating to the arrest or the alleged offender that would make it appropriate to destroy the material.
	I believe these proposals strike the right balance between the need to protect the public and the rights of the individual, while being informed by the best available evidence. The proposals in the Crime and Security Bill, along with action to tackle youth unemployment, and the legally binding commitment to eradicating child poverty, will help to make this country a safer and fairer place. I commend the Queen's Speech to the House.

Christopher Huhne: I welcome this opportunity to discuss the proposals put forward in this year's Gracious Address. My hon. Friends have already pointed out that the Address is little more than an opportunity for electioneering, and the Government have admitted as much themselves. Much of the legislation stands little, if any, chance of making it on to the statute book, and is heading inexorably towards the wash-up and a soapy consensus. That is not necessarily a bad thing at this stage of a Parliament, but we have seen it all before, too often.
	There is to be yet another criminal justice Bill-the 28th, on our count, since 1997-which throws together an essentially random selection of measures as diverse as the DNA database, about which we have just heard in some detail from the Home Secretary, domestic violence, gang injunctions, antisocial behaviour, wheel-clamping, mobile phones in prisons, and air weapons. This is legislation by grapeshot. Never mind the quality, feel the width.
	Astonishingly, the proposed Crime and Security Bill will amend an Act that received Royal Assent only 13 days ago. This is swift revision even by the Government's prolix standards. I do not know what the Bill team at the Home Office have been up to, but they are clearly working overtime. In all this helter-skelter activity, and with the Home Office displaying all the symptoms of attention deficit disorder, where is the strategy? What are the Government trying to do? Are Ministers merely indulging in inane activity, like a hamster on a treadmill? I see in this frenetic energy no guiding purpose and no sense of direction. Our criminal justice system is crying out for an approach based on the evidence of what works, yet, once again, we have a Bill that proclaims populist objectives, regardless, in many cases, of the evidence and bereft of strategy.
	The evidence suggests that prison should be for serious offenders and serial offences, not an everyday response to low-level thieving and other minor crime. Yet, looking at the big picture, we desperately need a shift from prison to other, more effective measures to stop reoffending. The reoffending rate for young men on their first prison sentence is 92 per cent. Prisons are just colleges of crime, where the young learn better the techniques that we would rather they did not learn at all.

David Davies: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept, however, that all the young men in prison have already been through all those community and non-custodial sentences that he is referring to, and that none of them have worked, which is why they end up back in front of the courts and in prison? At least they are off the streets.

Christopher Huhne: I do not accept the hon. Member's point. In fact, in many cases, there is not an adequately graded response to criminal or antisocial behaviour, particularly among young people. I intend to return to that point later.
	Prisons are full of drug addicts, who should be treated elsewhere, and people with mental health problems whose circumstances are likely to be aggravated by their prison experience. Adopting a problem-centred approach to crime, in which we actually did what worked to cut crime, would do far more to prevent crime and to detect criminals so that they could be caught. That would provide a far greater deterrent than just being even tougher on the tiny minority of criminals whose case ends up in a court conviction. If we take into account the British crime survey figures and those for business crime, plus those for people under the age recorded by the BCS, probably only one in 100 cases ends up in a court conviction. People are therefore unlikely to be impressed by posturing on tougher punishments. In fact, so small is the probability of being caught that it would make precious little difference if we were to promise far tougher punishments.
	This is why we need a new approach, with a much greater emphasis on detection. We also need more prevention, involving easy measures such as improving outside lighting, alarms and window locks. We need more detection, to ensure that criminals face justice. The prevention aspect of that agenda alone provides the main reason why crime has fallen further and faster in Liberal Democrat-controlled council areas than in either Labour or Tory-controlled areas- [ Interruption. ] The Home Secretary laughs, but, given that his own city of Hull and many other major cities outside London are now under outright Liberal Democrat control, we are no longer making our point based on a small sample.

Alan Johnson: I apologise for laughing, but it was funny. One of the reasons that crime and disorder in Hull is really coming down as a result of the terrific efforts of the chief constable is the extra police who were put into the city centre by the previous Labour administration before the Lib Dems took over. All that the Lib Dems have taken away is our free school meals service, which we very much want back. They have contributed nothing to the reduction in crime.

Christopher Huhne: I am astonished that the Home Secretary thinks that free school meals are relevant to crime figures. Let me give him a practical example of what I am saying. I have visited a number of Liberal Democrat councils-as no doubt he has; perhaps he should visit more-to see what work they are doing on the prevention agenda. Let us take Liverpool as an example. There, the Liberal Democrat council has installed alley gates, which have the enormous merit of preventing burglars from popping into backyards and stealing things from people's homes. I am not saying that alley gating is the only factor, but that, along with policing, has had a dramatic effect.
	Since the peak of crime, crime in Liberal Democrat council areas has fallen by more than the national average, at 20 per cent. Before we get any chortling from Conservative Members, I should say that, on crime, Conservative areas have performed less well than the national average, with rates falling 16 per cent. since the peak. Let us look at violent crime: down 6 per cent. in Conservative areas, but down by more than twice as much-by 14 per cent.-in Liberal Democrat-council areas. We are talking not about small samples, but about quite substantial areas, and what matters is what works. We need a big, strategic shift from prison to policing and probation, because catching more people who commit crime is a greater deterrent than more harshly punishing the few whom we do catch.

Christopher Huhne: I am grateful for that intervention, because my hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to the pilot in Derbyshire, where the results are encouraging and, indeed, the reoffending rates are as he describes. However, I agree with the Home Secretary that it is important to have more police on the front line-if only the Government would take his apparent advice. We need a further 10,000 police officers on the front line. We are still under-policed when compared with other leading industrial democracies, but we need better policing, too.
	One of the biggest disappointments of the Gracious Speech and the Crime and Security Bill is that they represent yet another missed opportunity by the Government to show some real commitment to police reform. The National Policing Improvement Agency should be given a wider remit so that it can commission research into any measures that cut crime, including not only better policing methods, but measures outside the police. Chief officers should have greater discretion to manage their force, decide key staff changes and reward specialism.
	The police contract-lifetime employment, now for 35 years, a single point of entry and pay linked to seniority rather than to talent or effort-should be urgently reviewed, as successive reports from inspectors of constabulary have pointed out. It was right to make a bonfire of the central targets and controls that have been introduced since 2002, but it was surely wrong for the Home Office not to cut back on the data requirements and red tape that went with that central control regime. It was surely wrong, too, to fail to put in place stronger local governance arrangements to pick up where Whitehall's meddling left off.
	Chief officers must be responsible for operations, they must be independent and they must be operationally independent, but strategy and priorities must be determined by strong and representative police authorities that speak for their people throughout the force area. There should be better consultation at local, basic command unit or operational command unit levels, because that matters; but the real locus of accountability is where the money is decided, at police authority level, and only more powerful accountability will drive up policing standards towards the best.
	Detection rates, even for violent crime, vary from 34 per cent. in the worst performing force, the Metropolitan police, to 67 per cent. in the best performing force in England and Wales. That is not an acceptable variation, and the public should not accept it. However, the Government have run away from the debate at the first whiff of gunshot from their own, Labour, councillors, and the official Opposition have proposed a system that makes strong men blench. One elected sheriff, in a multi-ethnic and diverse area such as Greater Manchester or the west midlands, would be a disaster, as the sheriff would be elected while ignoring the vast majority of his or her voters. That way lies insensitive policing, random stop-and-search and the Brixton riots. Without such reform, the measures heralded in the Gracious Speech are just tinkering around the edges. We need stronger local governance, but it has to be right and it has to be representative.
	Even where the Government are faced inexorably with the need for reform because of court judgments, they manage to botch their response. Let us look at the DNA database. Of course, DNA should be used in criminal investigations, no one denies that; and it will go on being used. Forensics should be better supported than Ministers' reorganisation of the service suggests. However, the Government's proposal-a six-year period holding DNA even of innocent people-is still an extraordinary response to the European Court of Human Rights and to the age-old principle of British justice that we are innocent until proven guilty. Just under 1 million innocent people-I think that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who is not in his place, said that the figure is 750,000, but my information from a parliamentary answer of 15 October is that it is 986,000-now have their DNA on the database, yet 2.3 million people who were convicted before DNA was routinely collected do not have their DNA on the database. No wonder the effectiveness of the database is steadily falling.
	Liberal Democrats favour instead a simple rule: if someone is convicted, their DNA will remain on the database; if they are innocent, it will not. By contrast, the Government's illiberal proposal is likely to be struck down again by the European Court, as it is not a proportionate response to a problem, and it still intrudes on the right to privacy guarded in the European convention on human rights.

William Bain: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech during the debate on the Gracious Speech. It is an honour for any right hon. or hon. Member to represent any constituency in this House, but it is an even more special privilege to be able to serve the community in which I was born, brought up and educated, and in which I have lived throughout my life.
	One of the upsides of having just fought the longest by-election campaign in modern history is that I was able to meet almost one in six, or 10,000, of my constituents during its course. What renewed my faith in our democratic process was having the opportunity to share my vision for Glasgow, North-East, and to hear of my constituents' hopes for their future, face to face. Despite the low turnout, the people of Glasgow, North-East care deeply about politics and about repairing the reputation of this House. They have sent me here to support the recommendations of the Kelly report, and to seek greater transparency in the way in which decisions are made by the House and our other democratic institutions.
	It was gratifying that so many of my right hon. and hon. Friends-and, indeed, right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, particularly the right hon. Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron), for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) and for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond)-were able to campaign in the constituency. Perhaps that contributed to the unexpected size of my majority, which was 8,111.
	I should like to share with the House a conversation that I had with a voter on the eve of polling day. Many Members may sympathise with my predicament. When I canvassed this particular elector for the third time, he greeted me with the same response that he had given on the previous two occasions. "Are you still trying?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "I cannot support any of you," he said. "None of the candidates has sufficient experience to be elected as my MP." As I prepared to concede and to consider that my efforts might be fruitless, he leaned conspiratorially over his garden fence and said "Don't worry, I will be supporting your party-not because of you, mind you; I will be voting for the Prime Minister."
	I represent a varied and interesting group of more than 20 communities in Glasgow, North-East, from Ruchill and Lambhill in the west to Hogganfield and Millerston in the east, and from Dennistoun in the south to Colston and Milton in the north. Each has its own history and character, but what they have in common is that they contain people of great humour, hard-working people, people of intelligence, talent and aspiration.
	During the campaign, I met mothers in Royston who were determined to fight for better child care so that they could work more hours to support their families. I met young people in Ruchazie who were taking the first step towards an apprenticeship through a programme run by a local voluntary group. I met retired people in Possilpark who were running a lunch club three times a week for local disabled people because of their strong sense of social responsibility. While they do not believe that Government on their own have the answer to every ill in society, nor do they believe that Government are the problem-and nor do they believe that Government should be cut back, with all the social consequences that we saw in Glasgow in the 1980s and early 1990s.
	My constituents are not as some portrayed them in the election, passive recipients of the welfare state, but people who want to see their children do better than they have done and to possess the courage and ambition to strengthen their communities. They elected me because I will stand up for their values, and will support the policies on investment in jobs, child care, pensions, tax credits and the minimum wage that will bring about a great improvement in their living standards. They support an active state that can be a force for good and has greater equality as its aim, not an enabling state that would enfeeble communities because of its withdrawal of investment in jobs or decent public services.
	The Glasgow, North-East constituency was created at the last general election from the previous seats of Glasgow, Springburn and Glasgow, Maryhill. Both areas have in the past had outstanding representatives, such as George and Agnes Hardie, John Forman, Richard Buchanan, James Craigen, Maria Fyfe-as doughty a fighter for social justice today as she was when a Member of this House-and, of course, my neighbour, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin), whose commitment on issues such as international development I have respected for over a decade. There have even been two Conservative Members in the past: Frederick Macquiston, supporting a Liberal-Conservative coalition between 1918 and 1922, and Captain Charles Emmott of the National Government coalition between 1931 and 1935. Neither experiment has been repeated by my constituents since.
	My immediate predecessor is Lord Martin of Springburn, and of Port Dundas. He is an exceptional person and parliamentarian. My family and many others in my constituency have known him for decades, and can attest that his career has been a tribute to the best traditions of public service. I know him to be a man of great fortitude under pressure, never more so than when Speaker of this House for nearly nine years, and of great kindness. I am sure that hon. and right hon. Members will have their own memories of individual acts of encouragement or advice he gave, but no one will forget the compassion he showed to the late Patsy Calton on resuming her seat after the last general election in the midst of her brave battle with cancer.
	Lord Martin was a member of Glasgow Corporation between 1973 and 1979, and a Member of this House for 30 years, being returned with prodigious majorities in seven consecutive general elections. Key to his politics was his passion for better housing. His own experiences growing up in Anderston, together with his vision to improve his community, led him to champion the development of new social housing. He was a founder-member of what is now North Glasgow Housing Association, and the more than £100 million of investment in homes in the constituency is an achievement of which Lord Martin and this Government can justly be proud.
	As Speaker, Lord Martin was a resolute defender of the rights and privileges of the legislature from Executive encroachment. His wit, fairness and humour are missed from this House, but are now at the disposal of the other place. I wish him and his family well for the future, and it is a particular pleasure to work with his son, Paul, who is an outstanding Member of the Scottish Parliament for the area.
	Every Member representing Glasgow is also a successor to the tradition of progressive politics championed by John Wheatley and James Maxton. Their commitment to equality finds new expression in our debate today. Most of my working life has been spent in education, and I was pleased to visit recently both colleges in my constituency: John Wheatley college in Haghill, and North Glasgow college in Springburn. They provide people with high-quality further and higher education and training, transforming the life chances of, and outcomes for, my constituents.
	The most pressing issue in this debate, and for the country at large, is unemployment and how to move our economy into recovery. Although the increase in unemployment has slowed in recent months, the International Monetary Fund anticipates that it will continue to rise until 2010, and this particularly impacts upon young people. Our constituents will judge us harshly if we fail to act now. That is why we need not only a continuing fiscal stimulus, but a continuing jobs stimulus. I welcome the additional £5 billion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has to invest in jobs for 18 to 24-year-olds and the long-term unemployed. I welcome the impact the future jobs fund is having in Glasgow, where 470 jobs have been created so far, but there is an urgent need for many more. I will shortly bring together employers, the city council and voluntary groups in my area to develop bids to bring more of this investment to Glasgow, North-East. At present, there are 1,275 jobless young people in my constituency, but only 617 employment vacancies. Had it not been for the policies followed by this Government on the new deal, the flexible new deal and the future jobs fund in the past year, the number of unemployed would have been far higher.
	We have faced the biggest shock to the global economy for more than 60 years and our European Union partners are struggling with high unemployment too. Tough economic times make the burden of child and family poverty even greater, which is why I support the Child Poverty Bill in setting targets and setting out a comprehensive strategy for the abolition of child poverty by 2020. We also need to commit across the House to the improvements in child benefit, tax credits and the minimum wage that will make it happen.
	These will be vital months in securing our economic recovery, and the jobs and living standards of millions of people will be affected by the decisions we take. Whatever our differences on policy across this Chamber, the great strength of this House is that we can rise to national challenges together. Let us face these responsibilities together and remember that greater economic fairness and equality is the prerequisite of greater liberty for the British people. I look forward to debating these issues and others with hon. and right hon. Members across this House in the coming months and to supporting the Gracious Speech in the Division Lobby today and tomorrow.

John Austin: The hon. Gentleman will know that the UK Government's ratification of the convention on human trafficking was delayed in part by arguments from the UK Border Agency that there was a pull-factor in adopting a victim-based approach to trafficking. Does he share my view that the Border Agency is not the place to locate the trafficking unit?

David Burrowes: I congratulate my hon. Friend on championing the cause for so many months and years. It is important that he has brought it to our attention. As well raising its international profile, is it not important to bring it to the attention of local communities, such as in Enfield, where we set up our own commission to look at the information on whether human trafficking occurs in Enfield, as we know it does, and across our communities? As much as we need national and international co-operation, it is important to ground it in local information and action.

Sally Keeble: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) and to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on the Gracious Speech. The hon. Gentleman's work on trafficking has been very important. My constituency has been heavily affected by trafficked women and trafficked children, so the work that he has undertaken has been valuable.
	I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-East (Mr. Bain). It was a pleasure to hear him speak and, at a time when there is so much cynicism about politics, to hear such a straightforward, idealistic and optimistic speech. I am sure his career in the House will be long and distinguished, and I offer him many congratulations on his speech.
	There was some suggestion from the Opposition that the Queen's Speech was a waste of time and that we should be reforming Parliament or holding an election, but there is some important work to do. Some of the most important items relate to the home affairs brief and the Department for Work and Pensions portfolio, so I am particularly pleased to be able to speak in today's debate.
	One of the topics on which I wish to speak is the mandatory code on alcohol sales, which will be the subject of secondary legislation due at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. I take the opportunity to encourage my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to make sure that the code is as robust as it can be. They should not take the view that because there is an election coming along nothing should be done about alcohol. Apart from being necessary, the measures to combat binge drinking chime well with the public mood. In my constituency they have been supported at public meetings and debates and in online surveys.
	There are three aspects that concern people: labelling, in-store and happy hour-type promotions, and price controls. The controls on happy hour-type promotions partly affect price, but do not go far enough, particularly because they tend to affect pubs and clubs, whereas part of the mischief of excess drinking arises from off-licence and supermarket sales. It is important that, if we are to deal with the problems of pricing, we have measures that go across both the on trade and the off trade.
	People say that all the problems can be solved by making drink more expensive, but it is also about preventing drinking from becoming even cheaper. In Northampton, some of the pubs and clubs discount their prices so that they can become student bars, and once they have the clientele the prices drift back up. A couple of years ago, the price of a drink in the student promotion was £1.50. Now, it is two drinks-a drink and a shot-for £1. That is 50p a drink. The clubs say that if they went right down to the base price that they pay for the alcohol-without factoring in the cost of staff, maintaining the premises, and so on-the cost could be as low as 24p a unit. If alcohol started to get even close to that price, the impact on health and on law and order would be absolutely catastrophic. Minimum pricing, which I believe a mandatory code should bring in, would set a floor under that kind of discounting.
	Exactly the same would apply in supermarkets. Everyone is familiar with the argument that supermarkets get people in to buy discounted alcohol, then cross-sell to other products. Effectively, the other products, and other drinkers, are having to subsidise the cost of very cheap alcohol. Sometimes, alcohol can be cheaper than water, which is complete nonsense.
	A recent inquiry conducted by the Health Committee found that Tesco was not completely opposed to minimum pricing, and the World Health Organisation has stated:
	"Increasing the price of alcoholic beverages is one of the most effective interventions to reduce harmful use of alcohol. Consumers, including heavy drinkers and young people, are sensitive to changes in the price of drinks."
	It is the excessive drinking and binge drinking of heavy drinkers and young people in particular that is causing the greatest public concern.
	Some careful work has also been done by Sheffield university and others on the impact of pricing on alcohol consumption. Concrete results from the Sheffield studies show that a minimum price of 40p per unit of alcohol would prevent 1,400 deaths a year and produce to an estimated reduction of 41,000 hospital admissions and 16,000 incidents of crime a year. According to Alcohol Concern, a minimum price of 50p a unit would result in 3,393 fewer deaths and 45,800 fewer crimes a year, and a total saving of £7.4 billion over 10 years.
	I would also like to spell out some of the support for introducing minimum pricing or, at least, tighter controls on alcohol prices. Not just the police, the chief medical officer and others in the health world and the National Association of Head Teachers think that it would be helpful. There is also significant support in the entertainment and drinks industries themselves. Recently, the head of this country's biggest chain of nightclubs, Luminar, accompanied me to see an hon. Friend in the Home Office. We talked about the importance of providing a floor for alcohol prices to secure a more realistic base for the entertainment industry and reach a position where people choose their nightclubs based on the quality of the venue, not because they are engaged in a "how low can you go" competition in the price of drinks on offer.
	I hope that when the mandatory code is introduced towards the end of the year, it will not only deal in very strict order with information and education, but have real teeth on pricing and, in particular, look at introducing minimum pricing to combat what has been a social menace. The issue was first raised with me by constituents concerned about the impact of antisocial behaviour by young people drinking on the Moulton Leys estate.
	The second measure that I am really pleased to be able to discuss is the Child Poverty Bill, which has been carried over so that it can complete its parliamentary stages. I hope that all parties will support it not just with warm, fluffy words, but by giving real teeth to the regulations and secondary legislation that will be introduced in the new year. They will set out how our local authorities implement those measures and ensure that they tackle child poverty in their areas. However, I shall table some amendments to the Bill to strengthen its safeguards for poor families in housing, because, although the legislation already contains such proposals, they are not strong enough.
	I hope also that the legislation from the Department for Work and Pensions will include some real opportunities to provide more support for parents' flexible working. I recently undertook some research in my constituency into the impact of the recession on families in Northampton, and, with information from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it clearly shows that as a result of the recession more women are becoming the breadwinners. They say that they are the breadwinners and take primary responsibility for the financial well-being of the family, and that their partners are taking more responsibility for child care. In those circumstances, it is important that we extend flexible working arrangements to men, if appropriate, so that they can take even more responsibility for their children, and women can pursue their careers and increase their income for the benefit of their families.
	One legacy of the recession will be changed family structures, roles and responsibilities, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will ensure that their proposals meet those challenges, so that families can build a more secure future.

David Burrowes: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble), who was quite right to focus on alcohol and the need for action on the problem. Indeed, there has not been such action in the past 12 years. The hon. Lady makes a good case for minimum pricing, and it must be looked at carefully.
	We have a Scottish experiment on minimum pricing. The hon. Member for Glasgow, North-East (Mr. Bain), whom I, too, commend on his maiden speech, referred to the Scottish experiment with Conservative Members of Parliament, and now we have an experiment with minimum pricing, so we will see whether it is a success. This is an important issue on which we must all reflect, but I commend to the Government the Conservative proposals for targeted tax increases on problem drinks such as alcopops and super-strength lagers. We need to take proper, targeted action in relation to the prevalence of alcohol and the menace that it causes in our communities. That reflects the fact that we have not achieved that yet, by any means.
	As ever in our home affairs debates, I declare an interest as a just-about-practising criminal solicitor with a keen interest in yet another crime Bill. Reference has been made to whether there have been 28 or nearly 50 crime and justice Bills under this Government. It reminds of me of childhood songs that my children now sing as well. They repeatedly sing the second verse of the same song a little bit louder and a little bit worse, and so it goes on. One feels that about the Government's repeated Home Office and Ministry of Justice legislation. I worry that we are just getting more of the same and more that is worse. The latest Bill has similar characteristics to all those that have gone before. In the theme of the season, we have a Christmas tree Bill. I fear that the members of the Public Bill Committee that considers it will see ever more amendments hanging off it as desperate attempts are made to introduce measures to plug the gaps, whether in relation to antisocial behaviour, crime or security.
	The other characteristic of such home affairs legislation is that the Government are dealing with a problem of their own making. In the case of the DNA database, for example, the Government are trying to catch up with court judgments and the values of our country. We have heard about mission creep and the over-involvement of innocent people, and the Government's use of secondary legislation has meant that we have not had the opportunity to debate the issue during consideration of primary legislation. A welcome aspect of the Bill is that we will have the opportunity to debate the important principles that have been under attack from this Government and the need to ensure that we have a proper balance between security and liberty.
	The Bill fails to deal with issues of repeal. In our desire to have new pieces of legislation to deal with issues of crime and justice, we must recognise the need to repeal elements of what has gone before. It is a shame that the Government do not recognise the extent of their mistakes. They would do well to look at previous legislation and to implement it-and enforce it-better. We need only look at the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a large proportion of which is not yet implemented. Parts of that Act, like many others that have gone before, are now largely discredited-for example its provisions on automatic release, particularly as they apply to people with short-term sentences. An example was recently reported in Essex of a person with a short sentence who was released automatically. Partly because of home detention curfews and their having been sentenced on a Friday, they were given the grant for their release and turned out. It is unacceptable that automatic release happens without any conditions in relation to the person's behaviour while in prison.
	I want to focus briefly on what is and is not in the Bill. It gives welcome attention to the whole area of domestic violence, particularly against women. That is a significant problem in all our communities. A particularly pernicious problem is that of repeat victimisation. That needs to be tackled in several ways, whether through enforcement-we must look carefully at those provisions in the Bill-or, as has been mooted today, through education and prevention. Many victims experience the problem of going to report an incident and facing up to seeking help. We need to recognise the role of the voluntary sector, not least in areas such as mine. There is a particular issue in relation to domestic violence in the Asian community. Organisations such as Naree Shakti-it means "women's strength"-play a role in that. The point of that organisation is to provide women with the strength to come forward and receive the ongoing support that the voluntary sector is so good at giving. We need to consider in the round how we can best tackle the problem.
	The Government wish to focus on education about domestic violence prevention, but wider matters have to be brought into sharp relief, such as the important part that drugs and alcohol sadly play in domestic violence. When one considers that, one sees the lack of funding and direction in our prevention programme. The Government and the Home Office pay all too little attention to the matter, and that needs to change. Perhaps in some ways we should not be surprised, because the Home Office's drugs strategy has led us down that path. It is less about prevention, enforcement and recovery and more about harm reduction, which has meant that the Government's focus has been on managing the problem rather than getting to the root causes of it and seeking to tackle it. We have seen the outcomes of that approach.
	Today, the Home Secretary seemed remarkably complacent about the problem of drugs in this country. Drug deaths continue to rise-they are the highest in Europe-and the cost of drug abuse, through crime and health services, has been more than £100 billion since 1998. It is important that we deal with the situation, because it is not just a crime and justice problem, but a problem for health and the wider community.
	We should not get away from the fact that the prevalence and usage of drugs has got worse. The age of initiation has come down, and we need to do more to tackle the fact that the UK is the worst in Europe for drug use. We need proper and effective treatment, but let us look at the outcome of the admittedly large amount that has gone into it. In the past year, of the 202,666 problematic drug users in treatment, how many had completed programmes to the point of becoming drug-free? Just 8,980. That is unacceptable, given the investment, and we must consider why it is the case. One problem is the Government's focus on managing the problem rather than seriously tackling it, and another is the fact that between January 2008 and this October, 20 residential rehabilitation centres closed.
	The situation is bleaker when we consider prisons. There has been a 64 per cent. increase in methadone prescribing, and few drug-free referrals are taking place. That is unacceptable and needs to change. The UK is becoming the easiest and cheapest place to get drugs, whether on the streets of Enfield in my constituency or on a wing of Pentonville or other prisons. We need to move away from simply providing treatment and towards management and recovery. We need to get away from the bureaucratic commissioning process that has led to just 3 per cent. of problematic drug users becoming drug-free. We also need to reform how we deal with criminal justice interventions, which are still leading to too much reoffending and too many damaged lives. We need to examine drug and alcohol problems and polydrug use in the round and realise that the evidence of the Home Office itself points to therapeutic communities as a way forward.
	Another matter that the Government did not touch on in the Queen's Speech was extradition, and particularly how it affects my constituent Gary McKinnon. It is welcome that the Home Secretary is considering the new medical evidence, which is compelling and significant. It deals not just with the risk of my constituent's health being affected by extradition to the United States, trial and detention, but with the fact that he has significant mental health problems aligned with his Asperger's syndrome. It is important that the Government and the Home Secretary take proper account of that evidence. I pay tribute to the Select Committee on Home Affairs for its work on the matter under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz).
	It is important that the Home Secretary does not hide behind the previous court judgment. He needs to realise that he cannot simply ignore the fact that a prosecution could take place in-country, and he cannot simply say that the bar is far too high for the case to attract his discretion because of human rights concerns. We all recognise that extradition arrangements need to be in place to fight global crime and ensure that we are not a safe haven for criminals, but Gary McKinnon does not fall into that bracket. He is a vulnerable man who hacked into computers and is now at significant risk. His life is at risk, and in a recent case in the High Court, Lord Justice Stanley Burnton recognised that if extradition did not take place, Gary McKinnon could be prosecuted here.
	We also need to recognise the important principle of proportionality. That needs to be balanced to ensure that the mental health concerns that are now prevalent are taken properly into account. There is no assurance of bail and repatriation. Holland and Israel were able to reach an agreement on the matter, but this country has not, which has done a disservice to British citizens. We need to review the extradition treaty-and a new Government to do that-but with Gary McKinnon, who is a victim of an unbalanced process, we need to recognise that the medical reports give ample grounds to ensure that human rights can be played in his interests, as they need to be. He needs to stay in this country.
	Finally, reference has been made to victims. Victims may get some new legislation, but fundamentally, we need criminal justice reform, which will have to wait for a new Government.

Phil Wilson: I welcome the measures in the Gracious Speech because they will be good for Britain, the north-east of England and Sedgefield. I believe that they build on the successes of the Government over the past 12 years. This Government's record is built on proud achievements. When faced with an international crisis, they have stepped up to the plate and delivered.
	When I survey my constituency and see how it is coping with the global challenges that I see around us, I see that unemployment has risen since 2008, but that is still half what it was in the mid-1980s. I ask myself why. Is it because the recession is being left to run its course, or because smart government, not dogma, is getting us through it? In Sedgefield, about 19,000 pensioners receive the winter fuel allowance and 9,500 people receive tax credits. Is that because of an act of charity, or is it because of smart government acting on behalf of our society to look after the most vulnerable in it? In 1997 in County Durham, one in four young people who left school did so without a qualification; today the figure is just over one in 10, and beneath the national average. Is that a result of a whip-round by parents to buy extra books and pencils, or is it because of investment in children, schools and teachers, because this Government know that our children need to be properly equipped for the 21st century? An international survey of 10,000 health practitioners says that the NHS provides the best primary health care in the world. Is that a result of charity, or is it because of public investment in thousands more doctors and nurses by a Government who created the NHS and who believe that health care should be free at the point of need-a principle that is deep in the DNA of the Labour party and the Labour Government?
	The answer to all those questions is obviously smart government-this Government, who are guided by the principles of compassion, solidarity and an understanding that the wealth the economy creates is there for the many, not just the few.
	When I hear accusations of a broken society, I think back to the 18 years immediately before 1997. When we look at unemployment, it is only right that we remind ourselves of those times. Today, there are more than 2.5 million more people in work than in 1997, and about 1.5 million people on jobseeker's allowance. In the 1980s, more than 3 million people were claiming the equivalent benefit. Of those, 40 per cent. had been on the dole for 12 months and more.
	Youth unemployment is a worry to us all, but of 943,000, more than 250,000 are full-time students. If you take those out, the unemployment rate for under-25s is just over 9 per cent. In the 1980s, it was 13 per cent., and in the 1990s, it was 12 per cent. Today, because of smart government, 70 per cent. of JSA recipients are back in work within six months.
	How can people say that we live in a broken society when the murder rate is at its lowest for the past 20 years, and when overall crime is down by 39 per cent. and violent crime by 41 per cent? How can we be in a broken society when more than 70 per cent. of adults volunteer at least once a year, and when three quarters of all 13 to 19-year-olds take part in sports or clubs or volunteer? A broken society is mentioned only by those who do not care about public services because they do not need to use them, and who say that charity is the answer because they know they will never need it.
	Charities have a role, but they can never be a substitute for smart government. Smart government gives millions of British people a fair deal. That is the responsibility of an elected Government; they must speak up for the needs of society and not outsource them. I always find that people who want to get the Government off their backs are usually those who think they can afford to be without the Government. They want to see less government and less regulation. But they are the first to come to the taxpayer if their business is going under or their bank has failed and wring their hands because regulation was after all too lax. Smart government says that the public and private sectors should work together, and that the people should always come first.
	There is of course an alternative. It is an alternative that says that instead of Building Schools for the Future, parents or a charity can rent an office block to set up a school. It is the alternative that says that 18 months for an operation is not too long to wait. It is the alternative that says it is the role of financial markets to make money out of other people's misery. It is the alternative that puts Britain on the fringes of Europe because it ignores the fact that 60 per cent. of our trade is with Europe and 3 million jobs depend on it. It is the world of "Little Britain", not Great Britain. It is the alternative that breaks cast-iron guarantees while the party that represents that alternative is still in opposition, where long may it remain. It is an alternative of a party whose shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) bizarrely says that it would be on the side of the NHS, when actually it is the party of a past in which patients waited six months for an appointment and two years for an operation. It is an alternative that thinks that the NHS is a mistake 60 years in the making. It is an alternative that will use the means test in reverse by saying to pensioners that they can have social care as long as they can put £8,000 up front. It is the alternative of a party whose leader said in his conference speech that
	"it falls to the modern Conservative Party to fight for the poorest".
	On hearing the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) say that on the television, I immediately changed over to the weather channel to see whether hell had indeed frozen over, because that will be the day that I will believe that statement.
	The Opposition are no longer just the Conservatives apparently: they are now progressive Conservatives. But how can they be progressive and conservative at the same time? I checked the "Oxford English Dictionary" to get a definition for both words. It defined progressive as "favouring change and innovation". For conservative, it said, "averse to change or innovation." So there we have it-a political philosophy that is a contradiction in terms, schizophrenic, Jekyll and Hyde, pulling one way then another, pointing in two directions at the same time, and just plain wrong.
	We know the Opposition: we met them on the street corner of the communities they closed down in the 1980s. We saw them turn their backs as child poverty soared under them. We heard them when they said that unemployment was a price worth paying. What they say and do are two different things-just look at their commitments and compare them with those of the Government. The first alternative policy they have to smart government is to reduce inheritance tax and give a £200,000 tax cut to each of the 3,000 richest estates. They will cut payments for people on incapacity benefit without investing in the measures needed to find them work. The Opposition put thousands of people on benefit when they were in power in the 1980s and 1990s, and a generation was lost. It was left to this Government to pick up the pieces, as we have been doing.
	The hon. Member for Tatton keeps saying that we are all in this together, but he wants people on modest incomes to take a pay freeze and work longer. It is easy to say that we are all in this together when you are a millionaire, can retire when you want to and do not have to worry about paying the bills. The Government have introduced a 50 per cent. tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 a year, because we do believe that we are all in this together.
	The right hon. Member for Witney blames "big government". In my view, it is just as well that our Government were big enough and smart enough to take the decisions to save the economy from total collapse. It is just as well that our Government are big enough and smart enough to fund 100,000 jobs for young people; help 300,000 families with their mortgages; and sign 200,000 agreements with businesses allowing them more time to pay their tax bills and keep people in work.
	The Opposition now claim that community is in their DNA. Well, it was not in their DNA when they were last in government, when real, long-term mass unemployment was evident on every street corner and plagued our communities. If community was not in their DNA then, it cannot be in their DNA now. Their DNA has done nothing but mutate into a split personality, saying one thing and doing another. But we know the truth. We are mending the broken society that they left behind. We know because we took the tough decisions that they opposed on the economy. We know the truth because Labour has built more than 100 new hospitals. There are hundreds of new or refurbished schools. In the north-east, deaths by heart disease have fallen by 58 per cent., and cancer deaths by 28 per cent. We still have much to do, but Labour's intent is clear: we are on the side of the people. The truth is that we created the NHS, but the Tories voted against it; we introduced the minimum wage, but the Tories voted against it; we created Sure Start, but the Tories voted against it; we stand for the many, but the Tories will stand by the few; we stand for fairness, but they will stand by the privileged. That is the choice that we face.
	I am optimistic about the future. We need a Government who are smart and big in character to face up to the future-and they are this Government. There are challenges ahead. If ever there was proof that we live in a globalised world, it was the turmoil in the global economy over the past year. People who live in the villages and towns in my constituency need to know that we will look after them in the future; that the benefits of a globalised economy will not pass them by; that the people who run the global economy and financial markets do not remain faceless gamblers and that what they get up to is transparent and accountable, and not socially useless; and that the major economies act in unison through the G20 and, if necessary, the introduction of a Tobin tax to dampen down the casino economy and to provide a safe and stable world of savings and investment for ordinary people.
	As I look at the register of donors to the Conservative party, I see bankers, hedge fund managers, tycoons, such as Lord Ashcroft, and people who believe in a casino economy and who got us into this mess in the first place. I guess that they will vote for the Conservative party, because it represents their interests. That is another reason I know that the Labour party will win the next election.

John Mason: I congratulate my neighbouring colleague, the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-East (Mr. Bain), on an excellent maiden speech. I hope that he will be available to his constituents and take on some of the case work that I have been covering in recent months-I had to survive only three weeks of a campaign, but he had four or five months, which is extraordinary. He mentioned several important issues on which I hope he will press the Government, because there might be slight differences between him and his Front-Bench colleagues. For example, perhaps it is time that we saw an increase in the minimum wage. He suggested that a fiscal stimulus would help unemployment, whereas, I believe, his Front-Bench colleagues are planning cuts.
	I will concentrate on the proposal to abolish attendance allowance and disability living allowance for over-65s, which would affect 2.4 million vulnerable pensioners-1.6 million claiming attendance allowance and 800,000 living on DLA. We have received various reassurances from Ministers suggesting that people will receive similar services, rather than money. On Thursday, the Health Secretary said that
	"people will be guaranteed an equivalent level of support".-[ Official Report, 19 November 2009; Vol. 501, c. 241.]
	"Equivalent level of support" could mean cash, home help or similar support in kind, and people are asking, "Which is it?" It is not good enough. That phrase is worrying a lot of people and I hope that we will receive some clarification. Clearly, the same money cannot be in two places at the same time, so increasing services in one area will mean cuts in payments in another area, and presumably the people who lose attendance allowance will not necessarily be the people who receive the new services.
	Attendance allowance and DLA do a lot of good. I shall quote from a briefing that I received from the Scottish Association for Mental Health. It provides several examples of how DLA and attendance allowance can be used to good effect, but we are short of time, so I shall limit how much I quote. It states:
	"Disability benefits and free personal care enable older people in Scotland to remain independent in the community, providing older people with a personal budget to help with their care and support needs. This could include covering the costs of a friend or family member coming to the home in the morning to help the person get out of bed, prepare meals or do shopping and cleaning. Any changes to disability benefits could affect the provision of this care and support and result in an older person needing more costly forms of social care in the home or lead to a person moving into residential care if they were not able to manage their household."
	SAMH gives similar examples:
	"Changes could increase the pressures on informal carers which could limit the opportunities of carers being able to work and therefore lead to them not contributing through the income tax system."
	The fear is of a lose-lose situation.
	The other concern is that I thought that we were aiming to support direct payments. In fact, the Welfare Reform Act 2009, which went through Committee only recently and which I was involved with, made some good statements in that direction. For example, clause 30 of the then Bill said:
	"The purpose of this Part is to enable disabled people aged 18 or over to exercise greater choice in relation to, and greater control over, the way in which relevant services...are provided to or for them".
	The idea is to move to giving people more control over their services, but if we abolish attendance allowance, it appears that there will be less control.
	What will happen to the money if DLA and attendance allowance are abolished for Scotland and Wales? Will it be handed over as a lump sum? If so, will the amount be based on need or on the Barnett formula of population? Will it be open to the devolved Governments to continue with attendance allowance in Scotland and Wales, even if they do not continue in England? Perhaps we could also have some clarification about whether only new claimants are affected, or will some of the current recipients lose benefits? There seems to be a lot of uncertainty about that, too. Can we have a clear statement from the Minister? I do not think that disabled pensioners and their carers should have to wait for clarification on that key issue.
	There is also the potential for an impact on carer's allowance, which is extremely low at the moment, at £53.10. However, what happens if carer's allowance is paid to someone who looks after a person receiving attendance allowance and attendance allowance is abolished? It seems bizarre to me that the party planning to cut benefits is the Labour party. That is the kind of thing that I would have expected from the Tories, who seem to be the ones trying to protect those benefits, although I do not entirely trust their version of events. That is a reverse from my younger days, perhaps 30 years ago, when Labour was to the left of the Tories. Many of my constituents now tell me that they cannot tell the difference. I fear that parts of the electorate still think that Labour is the party that will protect the poor and downtrodden, but when I hear things such as what I have described, it makes me wonder.
	Clearly there are overlaps between work and pensions and other aspects of the Queen's Speech, such as health. Another example is the minimum wage. If the Government are strapped for cash, why are we subsidising profitable employers to pay below a living wage? Tax credits are a good thing, because they boost the income of low earners. I certainly welcome that, but the Government's policies effectively mean that we are encouraging some employers to pay a wage that people cannot live on. I consider that to be immoral. If we are looking at benefits and encouraging people into work, part of the equation has to be increasing the minimum wage.
	Let me briefly discuss one or two other areas of concern that have been mentioned today. We certainly welcome the Child Poverty Bill. There has been a lot of support for the Bill from across the House, but there is concern that we will not be even halfway there by 2010-11. The Home Secretary said in opening this debate that he hoped to be there, but I do not think that he was widely believed. There are apparently no resources coming in to support the intention to abolish child poverty by 2020. The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) said that there would be "real teeth" in the Bill, but I have seen no sign of teeth whatever. Indeed, I would like to see what those "real teeth" might be, and that is without mentioning the fact that taking child poverty down to only 10 per cent. is hardly abolishing it.
	I do not want to spend much time on immigration, but it has been mentioned once or twice. There are just a couple of points that I would like to make, the first of which is about bogus colleges. We need action on that issue, on which there is agreement across the House. The colleges in my area, including John Wheatley college, which covers an area that I share with the hon. Gentleman, are concerned about the issue, as I know Scottish colleges will be in future.
	At the same time, while there is concern about people coming in in an uncontrolled manner, my own experience is that the Border Agency can be extremely strict with a lot of people. As I have mentioned before, a pipe band from Pakistan was refused entry and I know that a number of people from north America who had been well funded to work with the homeless in Glasgow, for example, or who had come to speak at a Christian conference have been sent right back from the airport. Yes, we need border controls, but there also needs to be flexibility. I echo the point made previously that Scotland's population is such that we would welcome more people coming in and boosting our economy.
	The final area I want to touch on briefly is the Calman commission, which I believe is an omission from the Queen's Speech. Whether it was there in the original version or not is a matter for debate, but the reality is that there is no firm commitment by the Government to take forward the Calman commission's proposals, despite the fact that many of them could very easily be brought into being. Sir Kenneth Calman himself said of his report:
	"I think there are a lot of bits, as I mentioned, which I think can be implemented quickly and easily without too much fuss, others will take a bit of time to think through."
	I appeal to the Government, where there is agreement across the board, not to leave matters until after the election, which will only cause delay. Let us act sooner rather than later.
	The drink-driving limit is one example. Clearly, there is an alcohol problem in Glasgow and the west of Scotland and I know that it exists south of the border as well. Minimum pricing has been mentioned, which we certainly welcome and encourage for Scotland. I hope that the hon. Lady and others who have spoken in support of this measure will speak to their colleagues in Scotland and encourage them to support it, too. If Northern Ireland can have separate limits for drink-driving, surely it would be helpful if we moved quickly so that Scotland can take a lead, as I argued earlier that it has on other issues.

David Davies: The hon. Gentleman ought to know that before any young offender goes to prison, they are given numerous warnings and reprimands, and they are given one community sentence after another. They go to prison only because all those interventions have failed, and failed miserably.  [Interruption.] Well, prison does not fail, in fact, because prison keeps them off the streets after they have been given a dozen chances, and means that the law-abiding public are kept safe.
	I hope that the next Government-of whichever party-will consider getting rid of the Human Rights Act 1998 and replacing it with something that protects the law-abiding public of this country, because it is disgraceful that drug addicts going into prison can now sue the prison authorities because they have to go through cold turkey as they cannot get their heroin, and that other drug addicts who develop their habit in prison sue the prison authorities because they have become hooked inside. It is also disgraceful that Muslim schoolgirls who do not like the school uniform can take their school to court and get given hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money, and that members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda-there are seven al-Qaeda members on the United Nations list living openly in this country on benefits-are told that they can stay here because otherwise their human rights would be breached. It is disgraceful, too, that a rapist from Sierra Leone was told he could not be deported back to Sierra Leone, despite the fact that he had numerous offences against women, because that might breach his rights to a family life. That is what the Human Rights Act, that this Government passed, has done for us. We should tear it up and replace it with something that will protect the general public.

Charles Walker: I am terrified to be following my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), as I want to speak about prison reform. I am aware that many people in prison fully deserve to be there because they have committed heinous crimes. I do not argue that prison does not work-it does, as people in prison are not on the street committing crimes-but too often we see the revolving door in action. We see people go to prison for a period of time, leave prison, and within a year 48 per cent. have reoffended and many of those people are back in prison. In the case of youngsters, as many as 75 per cent. reoffend within a year and end up back in prison.
	That is not good value for the taxpayer. The prison population is a captive audience, and that means that we must do something with them. I know that some progress has been made in that direction, but a great deal more remains to be done. Some 50 per cent. of prisoners have literacy and numeracy rates that are lower than an 11-year-old's, and they are simply incapable of functioning in the real world. A survey found that half of all prisoners were not qualified to do 96 per cent. of the jobs available outside prison, in the community. So we really must do something with the people who are in prison: we need to work on them to make them better people and to allow them to become fulfilled people able to turn their backs on crime
	When I came to Parliament, I was not a very moderate or relaxed person. I very much believed that people in prison fully deserved to be there, for as long and as often as possible, but 10 per cent. of our current prison population-a total of 8,000 people-formerly served in our armed forces. These are people who made significant sacrifices for this country, so why are they now in prison? How did we let them down so badly that they ended up there? Many more will follow unless we do something about the problem. We in this place know that many young men who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent history are now in prison. Somewhere, therefore, we are letting those brave young people down, and it is a scandal that 8,000 current prisoners used to be in our armed forces.
	Furthermore, prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill. We closed down the asylums 30 years ago and moved many of the people into prisons. Some 40 or 50 per cent. of prisoners have undiagnosed mental health problems. I am not saying that people with mental health problems cannot do bad things. Of course they can. However, I am saying that mental health problems can be a significant contributory factor to people making the wrong choices in life, and consistently making the wrong choices in life.
	Prison will not be a deterrent to an undiagnosed or untreated schizophrenic, so when we have people in prison who are ill, let us do something to help them. Let us do something to make them better. Every year that they spend in prison costs taxpayers £40,000. As my hon. Friend pointed out, if we let prisoners out unreformed and untreated, they do a lot more damage in society for the period that they are out of prison, then they go back to prison time and again and cost us a further £40,000 each time. This is not good enough.
	My hon. Friend also pointed out that many prisoners suffer from drug addiction problems, and we know that drug addiction leads people to commit serious criminal offences. The scandal is that more people come out of prison as drug addicts than go in, so we need treatment programmes in prison to ensure that we clean these people up and get them to a position where they can go back into society, hold down a responsible job and start giving back to the community, as opposed to taking away from the community. That is why it is so important that when people are in prison, we do something with them on the educational and training front. We must give them the skills that they require to go and compete in the jobs market.
	I am all in favour of building more prisons in the short to medium term, because unless we relieve prison overcrowding, we will not be able to address the underlying causes of reoffending. When prisons are overcrowded, it becomes purely a management issue for prison officers and the governors, as opposed to a rehabilitation issue. So let us, in the short to medium term, build more prisons so that we can start to have the space in the criminal justice system to rehabilitate people back into society, instead of sending out better criminals. Indeed, it is debatable whether we are sending out better criminals. To get into prison in the first place, they have to be caught, so they are not learning their skills from particularly bright operators.
	It is important, going ahead, that as we clean up our communities and make society a safer place, we start to address seriously the revolving door of prison. Let us be sure that when people go to prison for a significant period, we use that time to make that prisoner a better person. Certainly, punish them. Having their liberty removed is a punishment. For many of these people, going to drug treatment classes-

Nadine Dorries: I absolutely agree. That is partly why it is so difficult to calculate the true extent of the problem. However, the figures that my hon. Friend quoted, and other figures, reveal the depth of the problem that we are dealing with.
	It is a shame that in their final Gracious Speech, the Government have produced a Bill that deals with clamping and antisocial behaviour, but not with the worst antisocial behaviour that we face, which is a result of the drug problem. It is a huge shame that they have missed this golden opportunity to make a better society and deal with a problem that they have tried, and failed comprehensively, to deal with over the past 12 years. It was a golden opportunity to say to the people of the nation, "We understand the drug problem. We understand that there are many victims of crime as a result of drugs, so we are going to produce some really good treatment programmes, such as abstinence."
	I wish to touch on the erosion of the community's trust in the police. That may be because of the de Menezes shooting or police storming into the offices of an MP without a search warrant or permission in a politically motivated manner. It may be because the police are arresting people to take DNA without their permission. No Home Office Bill can be implemented without the people having trust in the police. Without communities working with the police, there is almost no point in bringing forward a Home Office Bill, because it will be impossible to implement.
	What can we do to improve trust in the police? We can make them more accountable to the people. When I write to my chief constable with a complaint from a constituent, somebody else writes back to me-an allocated department or another officer. Nobody in the police is accountable to the general public on a day-to-day, issue-by-issue basis.
	The Crime and Security Bill would have been fantastic if it had somewhere in it the introduction of an elected police commissioner or some way of making the police accountable to the people. The argument that Labour Members frequently give is that that would mean politicisation of the police, and that if we bring politics into the police force at local level we will be doomed. However, the announcement by the Association of Chief Police Officers this weekend that it wanted to introduce a register of men who have been reported for committing two or more domestic violence attacks was politicisation. It shows the police acting in a political manner and considering something that will appease the Government of the day. It is not a policy that says, "Let's introduce something that will get rid of all the drug pushers at the school gates at 4 o'clock every day."
	So why not use the Bill to bring in elected police commissioners, who people could go to the polls to vote for at the same time as voting for us? Then when something went wrong in a particular area and the MP or the general public wanted to hold someone to account, they could go to that directly elected commissioner. He or she in turn could hold the local police board to account. We do not have that, and it is another golden opportunity missed in the Bill.
	In my constituency, I suffer with the problem of clamping, which is covered in the Bill, on residential streets as well as in areas owned by the local authority. People come to my surgery on a weekly basis with stories of hardship about how they have been dealt with. As the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) said, people who do not have the financial wherewithal to pay the £150 on-the-spot fine can suffer hardship as a result. Once they pay the fine, some cannot keep their car, and some may not be able to keep their job. They are people who are living on the edge and trying to keep together their home and livelihood, and they find themselves suddenly having to pay £150 to get their car back. If they have to borrow that money as they do not have it that day, the cost escalates and is ramped up. If the Bill is used to protect those people from that hardship, that will be a good move. However, that is the only thing in the Bill that I can see will be of any particular use to people who are looking for something to make their life a little more crime-free and a little easier.
	I will therefore sit down and bemoan the fact that the Government have not even acknowledged that abstinence programmes work, and that they have not put anything in the Bill to point up that directly elected police commissioners would be a good idea and something to debate in the House. I hope they use the Bill to produce something to make people's lives better which, ironically, would be on the issue of the clamping of cars.

Theresa May: The subjects of today's debate on the Gracious Speech affect the day-to-day lives of our constituents across the country: crime and disorder, antisocial behaviour, worklessness, benefit dependency and violence against women. Those issues blight too many lives, and the challenges must be addressed by the next Government, but that requires change. Above all, the Queen's Speech and this debate have shown that this Government understand neither the need for change nor the depth of change needed, and they certainly do not have the vision or ideas to do what is necessary to tackle those issues.
	The debate was marked, as expected in a debate on the Queen's Speech, by the variety of issues that have been addressed by hon. Members. It was also notable for the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-East (Mr. Bain), who unfortunately is no longer in the Chamber. Making a maiden speech is daunting enough for new Members following a general election, but at least at that time there is some safety in numbers. Making a maiden speech is far more daunting and lonely for new Members who come in following a by-election, but I think he passed with flying colours. It was clear from his speech that he has immense pride in the fact that he is representing his home constituency. He spoke with wit and humour, and we look forward to hearing much more from him in future.
	The debate was ably opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who forensically identified the ways in which the Government have failed to live up to their promises on crime, antisocial behaviour and welfare reform. When the Home Secretary stood up, I expected an equally analytical response, but far from that, it was a full 15 minutes before he even got to talking about the Queen's Speech. He gave us what is coming to be the all-too-predictable Labour response, which is to say, "But it was all worse in the '80s." Never mind that the Government have not met their promises, or that there are serious social issues challenging this country. All the Government are interested in is wiping out the past 12 years and harking back to what many voters will see, frankly, as ancient history. This Government will be judged on their record and their plans for the future and, on any analysis, they will be found wanting.

Theresa May: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was pointing out that the approach of harking back to the past was followed by the hon. Members for Sedgefield and for Jarrow, but the latter also referred to his long-standing campaign on pleural plaques.
	There were a number of thoughtful contributions to the debate on the subject of violence against women and the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin) made a very thoughtful speech. He rightly commended the white ribbon campaign and highlighted the importance of involving men in the work to end violence against women. He reminded us that violence against women takes many forms, a theme that was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), whom I commend on his valuable work as chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking, which is-as he said in his speech-the new slavery. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) also reminded us of the impact of violence in various forms against women in certain communities, including the Asian community, and the importance of working with local communities to combat that violence.
	On the issue of crime, my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) reminded us of the need to get more police on the streets. As he pointed out, Labour promised, in its 1997 manifesto, that police would be on the beat, but the average police constable today spends only 14 per cent. of their time on the beat and 21 per cent. of their time on paperwork-another Government failure.
	Several hon. Members spoke about issues of particular interest to them: the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) spoke about alcohol sales and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) addressed drugs and their impact on people's lives. She referred to the failure of this Government in that area, and I have a very good drug rehabilitation centre in my constituency, Yeldall Manor, which is a long-term residential centre. It has an excellent record of getting people off drugs and turning their lives around, but because of the way in which the Government fund drug support, it is unable to fill all its beds. That is sad, because it could make a valuable contribution to people's lives.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) spoke thoughtfully about prison reform. The hon. Member for Glasgow, East (John Mason) raised the important issue of the Government's proposals to pay for their national care service by scrapping disability benefits for pensioners. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak dismissed that claim as unwarranted, and the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform has said that it was untrue. I can only assume that they, and any other Labour Member who says that it is untrue, have not read the Government's Green Paper on social care, because every option, apart from the option of people paying for social care themselves, is underpinned by some use of disability benefits. Furthermore, the Under-Secretary for Work and Pensions in the other place, Lord McKenzie of Luton has said:
	"My Lords, the Green Paper,  Shaping the Future of Care Together, proposed that one way to deal with the challenge of an ageing society may be to bring some disability benefits and the new care and support system together into a single system as a better way of providing support. At this stage, we do not want to rule out any options and so are considering all disability benefits."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 13 October 2009; Vol. 713, c. 112.]
	The hon. Member for Glasgow, East raised the important point that disability benefits, such as attendance allowance and disability living allowance for the over-65s, give those who receive them the option of deciding how to use that money for the care that they want and that suits their needs. The Government are proposing to take that individual decision making away from pensioners and to say to them, "We won't let you decide what care you should have; we will tell you what care you will have, and it's going to be what the Government decide you should have." That would be a retrograde step.
	There were also some lighter moments in the debate. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), as well as appearing to do a complete U-turn on the Liberal Democrats' policy on the DNA database, expounded the wonderful new policy of a regional points-based system for work permits. He said that that would work in the UK because it works in Australia. He needs to go and take some geography lessons if he thinks that that is a valid point.
	We also had a characteristically forceful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), who managed to cover crime, antisocial behaviour, prisons, immigration, political correctness and the Human Rights Act. I am not sure whether it was going from the sublime to the ridiculous or the other way round when he was followed by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), who proceeded to speak about wheel-clamping. I can tell her that I know about the problems of wheel-clamping from cases in my constituency.
	At the core of this debate lies the Government's failure to deliver on their promises over 12 years and their inability to develop the thinking needed to take the country forward. Nowhere is that more clear perhaps than in their failure to have a plan to tackle the debt crisis and a radical strategy to tackle the jobs crisis.
	Let us consider the Government's record on welfare reform. Having promised to be the party of welfare reform in 1997 and having asked the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) to "think the unthinkable", they abandoned real welfare reform for more than a decade. Even when David Freud-now sitting on our Benches in the other place, as the noble Lord Freud-produced his report on welfare reform, the Government pushed it to one side and did nothing, and only produced their limited proposals for reform after my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell published our green paper with radical ideas for welfare reform. Once again, therefore, the Government followed our lead, but once again failed to take the necessary steps to make the radical changes needed.
	Let us remind the House of the figures: unemployment is at nearly 2.5 million, and while the recession has had an impact, we must never forget that the country entered the recession with nearly 5 million on out-of-work benefits. Youth unemployment is at a record level; one in five young people is out of work; the cost of incapacity benefit is now higher than in 1997, when Labour came to power; in some communities in this country, more than half of working-age adults are out of work and dependent on benefits; and worklessness has cost about £350 billion in benefits over the past 12 years. That is the cost of the Government's failure to reform welfare.
	One of the saddest and most damning indictments of the Labour Government is their failure to do anything about the large number of long-term unemployed people on incapacity benefit. Of course, some on IB are unable to work, and they should be supported, but many who claim it can, and want to, work. They need the individualised support that will help them to overcome barriers to work and get them into jobs. Our work programme-

Helen Goodman: That's what they get.

Theresa May: I hear the Minister's remark from a sedentary position. However, under the Government's flexible new deal, over-50s on IB and assessed as able to work will get one work-focused interview, and under-50s on IB will get three work-focused interviews. That is not the individualised support that those people need to overcome barriers and enter the workplace.
	Under our work programme, and our "get Britain working" policy, we will ensure that people on IB who are judged fit and able to work will be referred straightaway to the specialist help of welfare-to-work providers, who will deliver a programme of support that meets their needs and gets them into work. That sort of vision will make a real change to people's lives. Are the Government giving that help? No. Only a Conservative Government would provide the support needed to help people on IB into work.
	Let us briefly consider youth unemployment. In a speech last week, the Prime Minister announced a range of measures, such as offering internships and other opportunities to graduates who have been unemployed for six months, but we think that all young people should be given specialised help to get them into work after six months. Once again, we see the paucity of the Government's ambitions. Whether it is rising levels of gun crime, increased numbers of persistent young offenders or rising IB claims, the Government have failed to meet their promises and abandoned too many of our fellow citizens. They have run out of ideas, have no answers to the challenges facing the country and have nothing left to offer. It is time for a fresh start and approach, and for the change that this country needs-change that can come only with a Conservative Government.

Christopher Huhne: The Secretary of State is far too intelligent to have misunderstood my remarks. I specifically said that my proposal would apply to work-place checks on employers. There is no question of border controls.

Yvette Cooper: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's recommitment to freedom of movement within the United Kingdom, because at a certain point in his remarks earlier he seemed to be committing himself to adding regional points for different regional skills shortages to the draft immigration Bill.
	The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) made a thoughtful speech on prison reform, while my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) and the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) both raised issues around wheel-clamping, which I know we will have an opportunity to debate further.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) pointed out many of the disingenuous ways in which Opposition Members have used statistics to support their image of a broken Britain, which their policies would, in fact, break further.
	The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) shouted at us all with great enthusiasm. He said that he did not believe the British Crime Survey and he refused to accept it. He said that he preferred hospital statistics instead. If he wants to refer to hospital statistics, I should point out to him that they, too, show a 6 per cent. decrease between 2007 and 2008 in admissions for assault with a sharp object. I hope that he will accept that that shows crime is falling, even if he does not want to accept the British Crime Survey.
	The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) gave us his account of the broken Britain that he sees all around him. What we did not see from him, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary pointed out, was any more information on his new plans for official forms. In  The Sunday Times he said:
	"Marriage has almost disappeared from official documents. I think that should change."
	We would have liked to hear more from him on that, because it would be interesting to know whether, under a Conservative Government, people will not be able to get a driving licence unless they have told the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency whether they are married; or whether they will not be able to submit a planning application to extend their house, until they have told the council whether they have walked down the aisle; or whether people will not be able to get a library card until they have told the librarian whether their husband has gone off with someone else.  [Interruption.] Conservative Members are saying, "How silly, how ridiculous," and I agree, but it was their honourable Front-Bench spokesperson who proposed this and it was their honourable Front-Bench spokesperson who, coming from a party that pretends to care and to complain about big government, put forward instead proposals that sound rather more like Big Brother.
	Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that there is a serious point here. If he is suggesting that children applying to schools should now have to put on their application forms information about whether or not their parents are married, I do not think that it is a good idea-and I do not think it is a good idea for the children, either. I am married, and I think it is great for people to be married, as strong relationships are important for children, but strong families come in all shapes and sizes. Unlike the Conservative party, I do not believe that a child should be told that his family is second-class because it does not have a married couple at the heart of it. In the end, that is at the core of the hon. Gentleman's statements about marriage and the Conservative party's proposals to put forward tax breaks for marriage and support for marriage in the benefit system at the expense of widows or at the expense of mums left literally holding the baby when their ex-husband walks off. I believe that it is children whom we should support. That is what our proposals in the Queen's Speech and the Child Poverty Bill are all about.
	The Queen's Speech supports children, as the Child Poverty Bill sets in place the historic ambition to cut child poverty and end it by 2020. We have already lifted 500,000 out of relative poverty, with a further 500,000 due to be lifted out of it by the measures we have brought in this year and last year.
	Helping people back to work is another important element. Families across Britain are being hit by the recession. The world financial crisis has caused the biggest shock to our economy for very many generations, but despite the recession and despite the big increase in the number of full-time students, the proportion of working-age households where no one works has, in fact, fallen since 1997. The proportion of households of working age with no one in work is, I repeat, still lower than it was in 1997 as a result of what the Conservatives had done before that year. That contrasts with what we have done to help people back into work, to help lone parents back into work even while unemployment is rising and to help people on long-term sickness benefits get the support and treatment they need.
	We want to do more to help young people because we know that they are most heavily affected during a recession. That is why, last week, the Prime Minister set out additional support to help young people from the moment they enter the jobcentre, and from the moment they become unemployed.
	The action that we have taken has already made a significant difference. Unemployment is currently about 400,000 lower than independent forecasters expected at the time of the Budget, saving us billions of pounds. That is partly the result of our extra support for the economy, and partly the result of the £5 billion extra help for the unemployed-£2.1 billion this year, and £2.9 billion next year-to get them back into work. That is £5 billion that Conservative Members have repeatedly refused to support.
	I will give the Opposition another opportunity tonight to say whether they will support that additional investment in jobcentres, and in getting young people back into work. Time and again, we have asked them to support that £5 billion, and time and again they have refused. I first asked the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) in April last year, and she refused to support the extra investment to help people into work. I asked her again in May, June, July and September. I even tried asking the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) in October, and he also refused to support it.
	Time and again, the Conservatives have refused to back the extra £5 billion that we need to help people to get back into work. That is discretionary spending-not automatic stabilisers, and not funded by cuts in departmental spending elsewhere. It is part of the temporary discretionary spending that the Conservative party has opposed. It is borrowing to support the economy, and it is bringing unemployment down. Unemployment is now 400,000 lower than forecast at the time of the Budget last year. As a result of our investment, unemployment is lower than expected, and lower than in previous recessions, but the Conservative party opposes it.
	The former Monetary Policy Committee member, Professor Danny Blanchflower, has said that if we followed the Conservative party's policies and cut investment in the middle of recession, we would potentially have unemployment of 4 million or 5 million now. That would be devastating for families and individuals across the country. The £5 billion investment is putting more staff into jobcentres to help people who are losing their jobs. In the 1980s, the Conservatives refused to put extra staff into jobcentres, and as a result made it voluntary to sign on and even to go into jobcentres to look for work. Little wonder that unemployment, and long-term unemployment, soared.
	Once again the Conservatives refuse to support the extra investment that is turning things around and helping young people who would not otherwise have got into jobs. Most shockingly of all, the Conservatives want to abolish the future jobs fund. They do not want to help people across the country-100,000 young people, and 50,000 of the long-term unemployed-back into work. We know why: they oppose big government. That was the statement from the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) earlier this month:
	"Human kindness, generosity and imagination are steadily being squeezed out by the work of the state."
	That is an astonishing statement. Is that what those on the Opposition Front Bench really think? Do they really think that help for mums in Sure Start is killing kindness? Do they think that faster treatment through the NHS is undermining generosity? Do they think that free entry to museums is somehow crippling kids' imagination?  [Interruption.] That is what he said-that human kindness, generosity and imagination are steadily being squeezed out by the work of the state.
	The Conservatives want the state to withdraw, to force people to sink or swim, and to leave charities to pick up the pieces. The last time the Conservative party tried that was in the 1980s.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 9(3).
	 Ordered, That the debate be resumed tomorrow.

Tim Yeo: I welcome this chance to raise on the Adjournment of the House my deep concerns about the adoption of very young children. In particular, I wish to expose the policy of Suffolk county council in cases where the birth parents do not wish to give up newly born babies for adoption. The council actively seeks opportunities to remove babies from their mothers. Its social work staff do so in a manner that in my view is sometimes tantamount to child kidnapping.
	I also wish to raise related concerns about custody decisions in cases where the parents are separated, and about the role of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Individual CAFCASS officers exercise substantial influence over the outcome of court hearings. They are often extremely unhelpful, both to birth parents who wish to be able to bring up their own children and to fathers who wish to retain access to children following the breakdown of a relationship.
	I have suspected for some time that an explicit if unpublished aim of the staff of Suffolk county council is to remove very young children from the care of their parents wherever possible. My anxiety results from a growing number of families in my constituency who come to me for help when Suffolk county council staff threaten to take away their children. I shall illustrate my concern by describing just one family, whom I have got to know well in the past 18 months. I wish I could believe that their case was exceptional but, alas, I fear that it may be typical of the practices followed by social workers throughout Suffolk, and possibly elsewhere in the country.
	For legal reasons, I cannot use the family's real names. I first met Carissa when she came to my constituency surgery in July 2008, with her partner Jim. At the time, Carissa was seven months' pregnant. I formed the view, which has been confirmed on every subsequent occasion, that although Carissa had a difficult and unhappy upbringing herself, she is potentially a loving and responsible mother, and that Jim would be a supportive and caring father.
	Carissa and Jim were concerned about the threats of Suffolk county council staff to take away their unborn baby soon after its birth. I therefore wrote to the then director for children and young people to ask why her staff had threatened this action, only to be informed that the county council was bound by confidentiality rules that prevented it from disclosing anything about the case. That was despite the fact that both parents had authorised the council, in writing, to disclose all information to me, however damaging it might be to them.
	Their daughter Poppy was born early in September last year. Suffolk county council social services monitored Poppy's progress minutely during the first few weeks of her life. Happily, she prospered at home under the loving care of Carissa and Jim. However, the fact that no fault could be found in the physical and emotional care provided by her natural parents did not deter the council from destroying this fragile family.
	On 27 October, the county council staff, having first ensured that Jim would be away from home, arrived unannounced and without warning at Carissa's home, accompanied by police. They snatched Poppy, then only a few weeks old, from the arms of her distraught mother. I immediately protested to the council about that unjust and cruel act. I received a letter in reply containing the chilling, and completely ungrammatical phrase
	"I can confirm that the infant was removed without notice with the assistance of the police however no force was used."
	In the eyes of the council, that apparently made everything all right.
	The appalling truth is that, in Suffolk in 2008, social workers and police could burst unannounced into a home to snatch a nine-week-old baby from the arms of her mother-a mother who is not only totally innocent of any offence but who is not even suspected of having harmed her child. Such is the extraordinary power of the social workers that all of that happens in a way that cannot be challenged. When the innocent victim asks her Member of Parliament for help, his inquiries are met with a wall of silence. This wall of silence is said to be in order to protect the privacy of the child. The truth is that it serves to conceal the actions of social workers from public gaze.
	It is very probable that if social workers had to operate with the same level of transparency and public scrutiny as every other profession takes for granted, some of the terrible cases where a failure to intervene, as opposed to the problem of unnecessary and unjust intervention in the case that I am describing, would not take place.
	To make matters very much worse, the circumstances of the raid were seriously misrepresented when council staff gave evidence in August this year to the adoption panel considering Poppy's future. Following the removal of Poppy from the care of her parents, a bitter legal battle took place, which continues to this day. Throughout this process Suffolk county council has repeatedly changed the grounds for removing Poppy, alternating between blaming one parent and then the other.
	The council's search for a justification for its cruelty became increasingly frantic as one initial diagnosis was overturned and replaced with another. Numerous contradictions arose which cast serious doubt on the soundness of the case against the couple. The first doctor's psychological assessment of Carissa declared that she qualified for a diagnosis of factitious disorder. Then a consultant forensic psychiatrist decided after the briefest of assessments that she fulfilled the criteria for the much more catch-all narcissistic personality disorder. The first doctor assessed that Jim was "a pathological liar". Later, a consultant clinical psychologist
	"would not endorse the expression".
	Expert witnesses also expressed misgivings. At a professional meeting on 18 March the doctors wanted to go on record
	"as being very concerned about the fragmented process of this case".
	Only Dr. B had seen both parents. Dr. D had only interviewed Jim and Dr. S only Carissa. Dr. B remarked that the fragmented information was a
	"disadvantage to the professional assessment as each had only part of the picture".
	Astonishingly, however, at no point has the ability of Carissa and Jim to care for Poppy been questioned. It is acknowledged that in the few weeks in which they were allowed to look after her, they did so in an exemplary manner.
	The final favoured rationale given by social services for Poppy's adoption order was based on nothing more than the possibility of future emotional abuse of her by either Carissa or Jim. The council staff claimed that only if Carissa received two years of therapy, and if Jim received at least six months', could they become responsible parents. Accepting that advice, and using wording that betrayed his own prejudices, a judge concluded that that would be too long a period to wait and that Poppy should therefore be taken away from her loving parents.
	The consistent thread running through this horrifying story has been the evident determination of social services staff to prevent an infant from being brought up in the care of her natural parents. There have been many other contradictions and inconsistencies in the case-far too many to list in this debate. Throughout the process Carissa and Jim have co-operated fully with social services, which is a reflection of how desperate they have been to retain their role as Poppy's parents. They were often caught in Catch-22 situations. Initially, Carissa was told she would have more chance of keeping Poppy if she separated from Jim. When she reluctantly complied with this suggestion temporarily in order to keep Poppy, however, the alleged instability of their relationship was cited as an additional reason for adoption.
	In August this year, when the Suffolk county council adoption panel held its hearing about the case, Jim and Carissa asked me to attend as their McKenzie friend, the first time I have undertaken this role. A kangaroo court would be a better title for the so-called panel. I inquired about its members and was told that they were
	"people with an interest in adoption-either adoptive parents themselves or people who had been adopted".
	Put another way, that meant that the panel consisted of people who were emotionally in favour of adoption, regardless of the merits of any individual case. I later learned that the panel almost always recommends that babies are adopted and practically never returns them to their birth parents.
	The procedure followed by the panel involves its members meeting first in private to consider the evidence. Neither Carissa nor Jim was permitted to know what information was being considered by the panel at this stage. This was particularly alarming because extensive and detailed notes were regularly written up after various meetings with council staff, CAFCASS employees and so on. Neither Carissa nor Jim ever had an opportunity to see these notes, to check their veracity or to comment on the judgments that they contained.
	This process would not, of course, be permitted if Carissa and Jim were facing criminal charges. The panel process equates to trying someone for an offence without giving them the chance to know on what the case against them is based. It is such a flagrant breach of natural justice that it would not be tolerated in any other legal process and should not be tolerated in adoption cases.
	Neither Carissa nor Jim stands accused of any offence whatever. The punishment that they face, however, is one of the most terrible any parent can face-the forced removal of their baby. The awful truth is that they would have more legal rights and would be treated more humanely and justly if they were on trial for murdering their child.
	It all meant that when Carissa and Jim eventually met the panel, they had no idea what points they should try to make because they did not know what they were accused of. Equally seriously, the accuracy of the allegations put before the panel by council staff is extremely questionable. One allegation, based on evidence from a council staff worker, was that Jim had been present when Poppy was snatched from her mother's home. It was said that a man's voice making threatening comments was heard from another room in the flat where Carissa was living with Poppy. That was not just a fabrication but must have been known by council staff to be a fabrication when it was included among the items for consideration by the panel.
	I am not qualified to assess the suitability of my constituents to parent their own child, but I am very concerned about the case. In bringing it, Suffolk county council has followed a procedure that should be outlawed in any civilised country. It is a process that denies parents the most basic human and legal rights.
	I am also concerned about the apparent contortions that county council social services and their appointed medical practitioners have gone through to justify their intervention and to find grounds for adoption. It is clear that far more accountability and scrutiny are required for social workers, CAFCASS officials, expert witnesses and judges. That is particularly the case when many of the same people are frequently involved. For example, the judge who oversaw a previous private law proceeding relating to Carissa's former husband also dealt with the case of Poppy. The CAFCASS practitioner who is Poppy's guardian was also involved in a custody dispute about Carissa's first child.
	Before concluding, I wish to mention briefly another constituency case involving this same CAFCASS worker. I consider the actions of that worker to be so damaging to the families she is appointed to help that, as soon as I am legally permitted to do so, I shall name her publicly. In the meantime, I strongly advise CAFCASS that she should be suspended.
	In that other case, a previously stable relationship between Richard and his partner, who together had a young daughter, broke down in distressing circumstances when his partner's older daughter physically attacked Richard. Unable to return to the family home, for which he had paid, and unwilling to bring charges against his stepdaughter, Richard moved out.
	At first, despite regular threats of violence against Richard and his family from the family of his former partner, threats that were so serious that significant protection measures had to be taken, Richard continued to enjoy almost daily access to his daughter-that is, until this CAFCASS worker arrived on the scene. In flagrant contradiction of the merits of the case and very much against the interests of the young girl concerned, the CAFCASS officer persuaded a court to cut Richard's access to his only daughter to a supervised session of no more than three hours a week. In the process, Richard's personal safety was seriously compromised. The result has been the destruction of the previously close and loving relationship between Richard and his daughter. Great distress has been caused to the whole of his family and Richard's health and well-being have been gravely damaged.
	To sum up, I believe that the current procedure for resolving adoption cases when the natural parents wish to retain care and custody of their children is unfair, unjust and should not be tolerated. The secrecy surrounding the process, together with the appalling lack of scrutiny and accountability in the social care and family court system, is made worse by the fact that Members of Parliament are prevented from having proper information in relation to "child protection" cases.
	Like other hon. Members, I am daily supporting constituents who have been let down by some branch of the state. Uniquely in the area of child protection, I am expected to trust that public officials are doing everything absolutely correctly. I am not allowed to make an informed judgment about that myself.
	Sadly, we know from the terrible baby P case that sometimes social workers make grievous errors. How, therefore, can we believe that every time a child is forcibly removed from a loving home and from his or her natural parents, the judgment of the social workers is so perfect and faultless that it should not be open to any outside scrutiny?
	In the case of Poppy it was only in September, after a court had ruled that she should be permanently and forcibly adopted, that I was finally allowed access to the detailed case notes. Poppy's parents themselves are still struggling to see the data held on them despite wanting to mount a private appeal. Once again, the rights of people accused of crimes, however serious, are far greater than those of parents of children whom social workers want to seize for adoption. In criminal cases, defendants have a right to receive copies of case conference notes and all the evidence that is used against them in court.
	There are, of course, many cases in which removing a child from the care of its parents is necessary and right, and tragically decisions about whether to return an abused child to abusive parents may literally be a matter of life or death. The category, however, of emotional abuse is more complex, but in any circumstances it is surely true that, if the professionals involved were made more accountable, decisions about permanent removal would be a little easier to justify. The problem of accountability is complex, but as award-winning journalist Camilla Cavendish, who has studied the subject, points out:
	"The privacy of the child has become synonymous with the privacy of the professionals."
	The other lesson from the case of Poppy is that the emphasis must shift from removing young children from parents, who may themselves be vulnerable and somewhat inadequate, to providing support for those same parents. If a fraction of the effort, cost and time that Suffolk county council staff spent on trying to justify the removal of Poppy from her parents had, instead, been devoted to helping Carissa and Jim, it would have strengthened a family instead of destroying it. Social workers should provide more supportive parenting help early on. The judge suggested that Jim would require six months to a year of therapy in September 2009, and that did not fit into Poppy's timescales, but the family were known to social services before her birth, giving them as much as 18 months to work with the couple had they so desired.
	Tens of thousands of pounds have been spent on the court process for the case-money that could have been used to help the family and others in their position. I urge the Minister to institute an immediate inquiry into how the adoption process works in the cases of very young babies who have been born to parents who wish to keep them. Some 16 years ago, I was a Minister at the Department of Health, where I had responsibility for adoption and social services policy. I believe that the subject is critical to many families and transcends normal party political boundaries. We should let the case of Poppy be the catalyst that leads to a change in such unfair procedures.

Diana Johnson: I congratulate the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) on securing this important debate. Like the hon. Gentleman, the Government want the very best for every single child in this country, and that is why we take the safeguarding of children so seriously. I am of course aware of the circumstances to which he refers, and I understand how incredibly difficult and emotionally draining it can be for all concerned in such cases. However, as I am sure he will appreciate, I am unable to comment on, or intervene in, such individual cases.
	Before I deal with some of the hon. Gentleman's points, I shall make it clear that the Government's policy is that children should live with their parents whenever possible. We have invested huge amounts in early intervention, through Sure Start children's centres and our Think Family initiatives, and in more intensive support, through family intervention projects, family nurse partnerships and multi-systemic therapy programmes, to support the most vulnerable families with children on the edge of care. The challenge for social workers, and for all of us, is to keep children safe and families together when that is possible, but sadly sometimes it is not.
	I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that the child's welfare is of paramount importance in all decisions made by local authorities, or by the court, about the care and upbringing of children. Sometimes children have to be taken into care because they cannot live at home in safety, and the Government make no apology for that. Local authorities have powers to apply to the courts for emergency protection orders, and the police have powers to remove children so that they can act immediately to protect the child, but local authorities cannot remove children from their parents' care without the parents' consent without first referring the matter to a court. The court may make such an order only if it is satisfied on the evidence provided that the child concerned is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, and that that is due to the care given to the child by the parents. It is, for the child, better if the order is made than if it is not.
	The decision that a child should be adopted is made not by one social worker, but by a group of people who scrutinise the adoption plan-in particular, an adoption panel. In considering the plan, the adoption panel and the local authority must, like the courts that make the final decisions, have regard to the welfare checklist set out in the Adoption and Children Act 2002, and they must consider whether adoption or another permanent option would be better for the child. If the parents do not agree to their child being placed for adoption, the local authority must apply to the court for a placement order. It is then a matter for the court to decide whether to make a placement order and, later, an adoption order. No child is adopted from care without a court deciding that it is in their best interests; this is a fundamental safeguard in the care system. Provisions in the Children, Schools and Families Bill will continue the process of opening up family courts by broadening the amount of information that can be reported by the media, which will be allowed to attend proceedings in staged processes. That is subject to a review following the introduction of the first stage.
	Let me turn now to information and support for parents. Parents must have access to court reports and permanence reports, as well as the right to counselling and fully understanding the reasons for decisions being made. They also have the right to an independent support worker as soon as adoption becomes the plan for the child. Adoption records are highly confidential, and it may not be appropriate for a local authority to share certain information with birth parents, particularly if this relates to third parties and if doing so could undermine the security of the adoptive placement or put the child's welfare at risk. However, the child's permanence report is to be read by the birth parents-it is a key document presented to the adoption panel about the adoption plan for a child. Parents should therefore be aware of information that the panel will take into account in making recommendations regarding the plan for adoption, and the panel will take into account any comments the parents have made on the child's permanence report.
	The local authority must provide a counselling service for parents, who, as I said, also have the right to an independent support worker, whose role is to provide the parents with advice and support. All local authorities should be working in partnership with birth parents, although it is a matter for each authority to decide on the appropriateness of sharing minutes of specific meetings. A new booklet for parents entitled "Your child could be taken into care" has been produced by the Ministry of Justice, with the aim of strengthening and improving the information offered to parents before court proceedings begin; this will be issued in the new year. In addition, since May this year the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service has been sending an information pack about court processes and the role of CAFCASS to all parents and children involved in proceedings.
	Government guidance consistently highlights the importance of continuing to work in partnership with parents with a view to the child returning home, even when statutory action is being taken. For example, we recently issued for consultation draft regulations and strengthened guidance, which set out our expectations regarding care planning to ensure that each looked-after child has a thorough assessment of their needs and circumstances. However, a stage may be reached when it is apparent that the child cannot return home. At that stage, the local authority must make alternative plans to provide the child with a permanent family home. Adoption is one way of providing this, and it is appropriate for some children, depending on the facts of each individual case. In such cases, however, the local authority must explain to the parents why the child can not go home, and why it has been decided that adoption is the plan, as well as the legal implications of placing their child with prospective adopters and the effect of an adoption order.
	Before I close, I feel it is worth noting that Ofsted's last inspection of Suffolk described the authority's adoption service to children and families as both strong and child-focused, with birth families being involved in adoption plans and invited to attend the adoption panel to give their views. It stated that they can also access independent support and receive help with maintaining indirect and direct contact with their children, and that they are treated with respect.
	I reiterate that I am proud of this Government's record in delivering for families and safeguarding children. There are already extensive checks and balances in the system, including the independent judiciary, publicly funded solicitors for all parties and CAFCASS children's guardians, which combine to ensure that care and adoption orders are made only after proper scrutiny of local authorities' work and proposals.
	I understand from CAFCASS that it received a letter from the hon. Gentleman on 19 November regarding the actions of a CAFCASS officer and the court's decision on contact in a specific case. It has assured me that he will receive a reply within 10 working days of receipt of that letter.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.